^''^f'??^ 


BR  110  .M3  1917 

Mains,  George  Preston,  1844 

1930.  j 

Religious  experience  I 


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Religious  Experience 


ITS  EVIDENTIAL  VALUE 


BY 
GEORGE  PRESTON   MAINS 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 
NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1917,  by 
GEORGE  PRESTON  MAINS 


TO 

JMp  iHotfjer 

WHO  BREATHED  AROUND  MY 
YOUNG  LIFE  THE  ATMOSPHERE 
OF  A  GODLY  NURTURE,  AND 
WHO,  TRANSLATED  IN  THE 
NINETY -FIFTH  YEAR  OF  HER 
EARTHLY  PILGRIMAGE,  LEFT  TO 
HER  CHILDREN  MOST  PRECIOUS 
MEMORIES  OF  A  SAINTLY  LIFE, 
THIS  VOLUME  IS  REVERENTLY 
AND  AFFECTIONATELY  INSCRIBED. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Foreword 9 

PART  FIRST 

SOURCES 

I.    Source  and  Scope 21 

II.    The  Spiritual  Sense 41 

III.  The  Holy  Spirit 63 

IV.  Conversion 83 

PART  SECOND 

EVIDENTIAL  VALUES 

V.    Christian  Character 105 

VI.    Spiritual  Fruits 145 

VII.     Christian  Service 167 

VIII.    The  Pragmatic  Test 191 

IX.  The  Pragmatic  Test  (Continued) ....  213 

X.    The  Pragmatic  Test  (Concluded) 231 

Bibliography 255 

Index 259 


FOREWORD 

This  book  is  written  in  the  conviction  that 

God  has  direct  and   vital   relations   with  the 

human  soul.     These  relations  embrace  all  that 

is   significant   or   of   lasting    value   in    human 

character  and  destiny.    While  the  fundamental 

grounds  of  these  relations  are  unchanging  and 

abiding,   man's  knowledge  ever  grows.     This 

means  that  his  very  opinions  must  constantly 

be  held  subject  to  revision  and  change.     Dr. 

William    Newton    Clarke,    in    his    great    work 

on  theology,  has  ably  stated  this  mental  law. 

He  says: 

Nor  so  long  as  Christianity  is  a  living  thing  and 
not  a  relic  can  any  statement  of  doctrine  be  final. 
Thought  will  always  be  busy  with  the  great  themes, 
and  as  long  as  men  think  they  will  see  new  light. 
Progress  is  a  necessary  form  of  the  life  of  doctrine, 
each  generation  adding  something  to  the  work 
of  the  past,  and  offering  something  to  the  future. 
Christian  doctrine  is  thus  bound  to  be  an  ever- 
moving  stream  of  intellectual  and  spiritual  appre- 
ciation, and  in  its  movement  is  its  power.  The 
steadfastness  and  the  variability  are  both  due  to 
the  fact  that  doctrine  is  the  expression  of  a  life 
that  never  fails. 

"Religious  Experience"   is  a  subject  which 

9 


10  FOREWORD 

has  elicited  ages-long  discussion.  I  am  im- 
pressed, however,  that  there  is  room  for  some 
fresh  and  modern  restatements  within  this 
theme.  I  am  quite  aware  that  one  writing 
upon  this  subject  cannot  hope  to  make  suc- 
cessful appeal  to  all  types  of  mind.  There 
are  minds,  some  quite  diverse  from  others, 
whose  doors  are  barred  to  any  Christian 
reality  whatsoever. 

The  philosophy  of  Nietzsche,  for  instance, 
seems,  especially  in  Germany,  to  have  much 
following.  This  philosophy  is  utterly  godless. 
He  rates  Christianity  as  a  great  curse  to  the 
world.  He  brands  it  as  an  "intrinsic  deprav- 
ity." He  would  install  in  place  of  God  the 
"Superman."  It  is  the  legitimate  mission  of 
the  superman  to  crush  and  to  destroy  the 
weak,  that  the  race  may  perpetuate  only  the 
strong.  Without  conscience  and  without  sym- 
pathy, he  would  enthrone  might  as  the  only 
right. 

I  am  impressed  that  the  average  quiet 
Christian  mind,  comfortably  housed  and  soothed 
in  its  own  faith,  may  have  very  inadequate 
conception  of  the  subtle  and  corroding  skep- 
ticism that  is  widely  propagated  in  present- 
day  thought.  It  is  generally  admitted  that 
organized  labor,  representing  a  great  army  of 
citizenship,   is,   for   the   larger  part,   living  in 


FOREWORD  11 

practical  divorce  from  the  Church.  An  alien 
and  powerful  press,  largely  supported  by  the 
unchurched  masses,  is  carrying  everywhere  the 
infection  of  vicious  doubt  and  hate  even  to- 
ward Christianity  itself.  As  Professor  Thomas 
C.  Hall  has  said: 

There  are  weary  and  rebellious  workingmen  who 
are  being  taught  day  in  and  day  out  that  there  is 
no  God,  that  the  churches  are  fooling  them,  that 
the  ministry  is  a  selfish,  money-making,  cowardly 
class  institution,  and  that  the  only  way  out  is  to 
overthrow  all  religion  and  to  abandon  all  churches. 

In  any  great  city,  at  noonday  or  in  the  evening 
hours,  there  may  be  seen  gathered  at  the 
street  corners  or  at  the  park  sides  knots  of 
men  listening  to  harangues  of  outworn  ma- 
terialism and  of  a  coarse  and  venomous  in- 
fidelity. Unsalaried  messengers,  by  night  and 
by  day,  and  under  the  open  skies,  and  for 
every  day  in  the  week,  are  pressing  upon  the 
crowds  the  teachings  of  nescience  and  godless- 
ness.  All  this  is  going  on  while  the  church 
doors  are  closed,  and  many  of  the  members 
of  the  churches  are  indulging  in  undisturbed 
dreams  of  moral  security. 

In  what  may  be  ranked  as  circles  of  culture 
and  of  privilege,  there  is  a  large  contingency 
of  mind  characterized  by  agnosticism,  or  by 
the  fixed  mood  of  worldly  indifference  toward 


12  FOREWORD 

spiritual  things.  While  a  scientific  material- 
ism no  longer  occupies  first-class  rooms  in  the 
apartments  of  philosophic  thought,  nevertheless 
many  are  still  giving  to  the  lessons  of  nature 
a  construction  which  excludes  spiritual  inter- 
pretation. Among  gravely  significant  numbers 
of  the  recipients  of, high  intellectual  advantages 
is  to  be  found  a  deadly  indifference  to  either 
the  spiritual  opportunities  and  obligations  of 
the  present  life,  or  to  the  demands  and  ne- 
cessities of  preparation  for  an  eternal  life  to 
come.  This  condition,  it  is  greatly  to  be 
feared,  obtains  in  far  larger  measure  than 
seems  to  be  apprehended  in  the  general  thought 
of  the  Church. 

While  a  materialistic  philosophy  is  justly 
relegated  to  the  past,  it  is  still  woefully  true 
that  the  lure  of  a  practical  materialism  rests 
appallingly  upon  the  life  of  the  age.  The 
present  passing  world  was  never  so  attractive 
to  the  popular  vision,  never  so  bewitching  and 
bewildering  in  its  appeals  to  life,  never  offering 
such  tempting  service  and  reward  to  men,  as 
now.  The  Mammon-god  is  widely  worshiped 
in  the  age. 

It  is  quite  true  that  not  all  of  these  classes 
interest  themselves  to  institute  a  formal  or 
systematic  opposition  to  Christianity  itself,  or 
to  its  teachings.     They  seem  to  have  no  awak- 


FOREWORD  13 

ened  interest  in,  or  serious  convictions  concern- 
ing, the  claims  of  the  spiritual  life.  They  do 
not  oppose  the  Church;  they  simply  give  it  the 
treatment  of  a  cold  and  indifferent  neglect. 
The  great  citizenship  of  the  non-Christian  world 
about  us  may  be  divided  into  two  general 
classes:  the  one  characterized  by  a  spiritual 
indifference  that  seems  as  cold  and  hopeless  as 
the  grave;  the  other  embracing  all  the  camps  of 
active  opposition  to  Christianity,  occupying  ad- 
vanced grounds,  and  using  modern  weapons 
and  methods  that  were  never  outrivaled  in  the 
power  of  a  subtle,  obstinate,  and  deadly  de- 
structiveness. 

In  the  meantime,  while  it  would  be  fatuous 
to  underestimate,  much  more  so  to  ignore,  the 
volume  and  strength  of  hostile  forces,  Chris- 
tianity, in  the  values  of  its  beneficent  mission 
to  the  world,  has  nothing  to  fear  in  any  com- 
parison which  may  be  instituted  between  itself 
and  any  or  all  other  forces  which  would  either 
destroy  it,  or  substitute  it  by  other  faiths. 
Applying  the  pragmatic  rule  of  Christ,  "By 
their  fruits,  ye  shall  know  them,"  to  all  systems 
alike,  Christianity  amply  demonstrates  its 
supreme  fitness  to  receive,  as  above  all  its 
rivals,  the  universal  approval  and  acceptance 
of    mankind. 

The  genius  of  the  Nietzschean  philosophy 


14  FOREWORD 

is  to  transform  man  into  a  destructive  wild 
beast.  The  incarnation  of  this  philosophy 
into  Prussian  militarism  has  been  decisive  in 
plunging  Europe  into  a  hell  of  flame  and  of 
indescribable  horrors.  It  seems  a  fitting  sequel 
to  the  life  of  the  chief  expounder  and  promoter 
of  this  philosophy  that  he  should  finally  die  in  a 
madhouse. 

So  far  as  the  great  army  of  labor  is  concerned, 
there  is  no  evidence  that  its  acceptance  of  a 
materialistic  guidance  has  demonstrated  any 
power  to  promote  among  them  the  fruits  either 
of  sobriety,  temperance,  temporal  prosperity, 
or  the  spirit  of  domestic  or  public  peace.  It  is 
not  to  be  forgotten  that  multitudes  of  the  indi- 
viduals involved  are  inheritors  of  Christian  in- 
fluences. They  are  by  all  their  inheritances 
law  and  order-abiding  men.  They  cannot  be 
controlled  either  by  the  dictates  or  impulses  of 
anarchy.  Nevertheless,  in  times  of  crisis  there 
occurs  in  their  organizations  what  has  never 
been  known  to  take  place  under  any  Christianly 
governed  bodies.  In  times  of  tension,  however 
sporadic  the  instances  may  be,  the  labor  organ- 
ization has  seemed  powerless  to  prevent  the 
resort  by  some,  at  least,  of  its  members  to 
violence,  to  the  destruction  of  property,  to 
dynamite,  and  to  murder.  However  much 
good  men  may  sympathize  with  the  legitimate 


FOREWORD  15 

rights  and  demands  of  labor — and  these  rights 
and  demands  are  many — it  seems  impossible 
to  show  that  the  social  and  moral  interests  of 
the  laboring  world,  as  a  whole,  have  been  up- 
lifted by  the  methods  of  godless  organizations. 

In  the  purely  materialistic  and  plutocratic 
life  of  the  present  age  there  are  to  be  encountered 
the  same  indifference,  the  same  enmities  to- 
ward Christianity  with  which  Saint  Paul  had 
to  contend  anciently  in  his  mission  to  the  pagan 
world.  And  this  modern  world-spirit  yields 
the  same  fruits  to  civilization  as  did  that  ancient 
paganism  to  the  age  of  Paul. 

Christianity  in  the  meantime,  whatever  its 
faults  or  failures — and  for  the  very  reason  that 
it  seeks  the  moral  transformation  and  uplift  of 
an  imperfect  humanity,  its  human  history  is 
characterized  by  both  faults  and  failures — 
nevertheless  more  conspicuously  to-day  than 
ever  before  holds  before  the  world  the  one 
prophetic,  quenchless,  and  adequate  light  for 
the  moral  guidance  of  humanity. 

Historically  measured,  and  in  frankest  ad- 
mission of  the  moral  imperfections  of  present 
world-society,  Christianity  stands  without  a 
rival  in  working  both  toward  the  eradication  of 
moral  evil  and  the  creation  of  ideal  human 
character  in  the  world.  Dr.  Frank  Ballard  has 
so  well  covered  this  proposition,  that  I  take 


16  FOREWORD 

pleasure    in    giving    the    following    statements 
direct  from  his  own  pen: 

(1)  Whatever  be  the  comparative  failure  of 
Christianity,  it  has  done,  and  is  now  doing,  more 
toward  the  two  great  ends  above  contemplated, 
than  any  other  rehgion. 

(2)  It  has  done,  and  is  now  doing,  more  than  any 
form  of  irreligion. 

(3)  It  has  done,  and  is  doing,  when  all  the  factors 
of  the  great  problems  are  fairly  taken  into  account, 
as  much  as  could  reasonably  be  expected. 

(4)  It  is  now  doing  more  than  any  other  influence 
in  civihzation,  by  way  of  contribution  to  the  con- 
quest of  ill  and  the  triumph  of  good. 

A  standing  wonder,  beauty,  and  fairness  of 
Christianity  is  that  it  submits  itself  at  all  times 
and  among  all  races  to  the  plain  test  of  human 
experience.  It  stands  at  all  times  ready  to  be 
judged  by  its  fruits  as  shown  in  life  and  in 
character.  It  is  to  some  exposition  of  these 
experimental  tests  that  the  present  work  is 
dedicated. 

For  thoughts  and  facts  as  set  forth  in  the 
following  pages  I  am  indebted  to  many  sources. 
Save  in  a  few  instances,  I  have  avoided  quota- 
tion marks,  indicating  direct  quotations  by  the 
closer  type.  Nor  have  I  burdened  my  space  with 
footnotes  of  credits  to  special  authors.  At  the 
close  of  the  volume  will  be  found  a  list  of  pub- 
lications, each  of  which  I  have  more  or  less 
consulted  in  the  preparation  of  my  manuscript. 


FOREWORD  17 

My  special  acknowledgments  are  due  to  one 
work.  I  have  reread  with  profit,  and  always 
with  refreshing  interest,  William  James's  great 
work,  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience.  I  do 
not  think  I  am  so  much  indebted  to  James  for 
new  knowledge  as  for  his  fair-minded  and 
masterful  methods,  his  wealth  of  illustrative 
incidents,  and  the  vigorous  and  lucid  style  em- 
ployed in  his  treatment  of  a  great  subject. 

The  subject  into  which  I  have  ventured,  like 
a  temple  vast  and  many-roomed,  is  so  spacious 
and  rich  as  greatly  to  impress  me  that  my  work, 
taken  at  its  best,  is  but  a  fraction  of  a  great 
whole.  If  the  readers  of  this'  book  gain  from 
its  reading  a  tithe  of  the  profit  which  I  have 
experienced  in  its  writing,  then  I  shall  be 
amply  compensated  for  any  labors  expended 
in  its  preparation. 

Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania. 


PART  FIRST 
SOURCES 


I 

SOURCE  AND  SCOPE 


So  God  created  man  in  his  own  image,  in  the  image  of 
God  created  he  him ;  male  and  female  created  he  them. — 
Genesis  1.  27. 

God  that  made  the  world  and  all  things  therein  .  .  .  hath 
made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men  for  to  dwell  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  .  .  .  that  they  should  seek  the  Lord,  if 
haply  they  might  feel  after  him,  and  find  him,  though  he  be 
not  far  from  every  one  of  us. — Acts  17.  24-27. 

Then  Peter  opened  his  mouth,  and  said.  Of  a  truth  I 
perceive  that  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons:  but  in  every 
nation  he  that  feareth  him,  and  worketh  righteousness,  is 
accepted  with  him. — Acts  10.  34,  35. 

Religion  is  so  essential  to  man  that  he  cannot  escape  from 
it.  It  besets  him,  penetrates,  holds  him  even  against  his 
will.  The  proof  of  its  necessity  is  the  spontaneity  of  its 
existence.  It  comes  into  being  without  any  man  willing  it, 
or  any  man  making  it ;  and  as  it  began  so  it  continues.  Few 
men  could  give  a  reason  for  their  belief,  and  the  curious 
thing  is  that  when  it  is  attempted  the  reasons  are,  as  a  rule, 
less  rational  than  the  beliefs  themselves.  ...  If  great  his- 
torical religions  which  innumerable  millions  of  men,  as 
rational  as  we,  have  professed  through  thousands  of  ages, 
be  resolved  into  systems  of  error  and  delusion  that  only  the 
blind  deceitfulness  of  the  human  heart  could  tempt  man  to 
believe,  then  it  is  evident  that  we  dare  not  use  the  reason  or 
the  conscience  which  we  have  so  discredited  either  to  believe 
or  to  attest,  or  to  justify  the  truth  of  our  own.  In  other 
words,  the  philosophy  that  misreads  the  origin  of  religious 
ideas  and  the  history  of  any  religion  will  not,  and,  indeed, 
cannot,  be  just  to  the  Christian;  while  he  who  would  main- 
tain the  Christian  must  be  just  and  even  generous  to  all 
religions  created  and  professed  of  men. — Andrew  Martin 
Fairbairn. 

Behind  and  at  the  foundation  of  all  religion  lies  the 
fact  of  the  soul's  vision  of  the  Eternal.  The  church,  the 
historic  faith,  the  communion  of  saints,  the  vital  power  and 
permanence  of  religion — all  rest  ultimately  on  the  reality, 
and  intensity,  and  clarity  of  that  vision;  on  the  things  that 
eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  but  which  the  Spirit  reveals 
to  the  soul  in  the  silence  of  the  secret  and  inner  shrine  of 
the  individual  life.  There  is  the  central  source  and  spring 
of  religion,  and  there  ultimately  all  its  problems  must  find 
their    solution. — Benjamin   A.   Millard. 


CHAPTER  I 
SOURCE  AND  SCOPE 

In  deciding  a  general  title  I  have  elected  to 
use  the  term  "Religious  Experience"  rather  than 
"Christian  Experience."  This  does  not  mean 
that  I  do  not  regard  the  ideal  Christian  experi- 
ence as  the  highest  type  of  religious  experience. 
The  religious  experience  of  the  race  presents 
an  infinite  variety,  much  of  which  little  lends 
itself  to  distinctive  Christian  classification. 
But  no  discussion  of  religious  experience  can 
be  adequate  which  leaves  out  of  consideration 
the  religious  life  of  non-Christian  faiths.  The 
literature  of  the  religious  life  is  well-nigh  meas- 
ureless. It  opens  itself  out  into  realms  of  fact 
and  suggestion  so  rich  as  to  challenge  largest 
study. 

It  is  quite  aside  from  my  purpose  to  attempt 
any  exhaustive  survey  of  comparative  religions. 
A  vast  volume  of  primitive  phenomena  in  a 
work  like  this  can  be  passed  by  without  men- 
tion. But  no  open-minded  review  of  religious 
thought  and  experience  can  fail  to  make  im- 
pressive  both    the   vastness   of    the    religious 

23 


24  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

question  itself  and  the  commanding  significance 
of  many  religious  faiths  which  are  not  classified 
as  Christian.  Doubtless  many  religious  views 
now  in  vogue  and  pleading  for  acceptance  are 
destined  to  fail  and  to  fall  before  the  inquisition 
of  reason.  The  horizon  of  religious  thought,  how- 
ever, will  ceaselessly  expand.  Religious  truth 
which  still  awaits  discovery  and  appropriation  by 
sane  and  devout  faith  will  be  an  ever-growing 
volume.  There  is  no  more  obvious  duty  for 
the  Christian  thinker  of  to-day  than  to  gird 
himself  reverently,  and  with  open  and  hospit- 
able mind,  for  frankest  exploration  in  realms 
of  religious  phenomena.  From  such  study  de- 
voutly pursued  there  can  result  no  detriment, 
much  less  a  menace,  to  sane  faith. 

No  one  can  intelligently  deny,  I  think,  that  a 
great  body  of  reverent  thought  addresses  itself 
to  the  age,  thought  which  so  far  has  not  famil- 
iarly uttered  itself  within  the  pale  of  so-called 
"historical  orthodoxy,"  yet  which  at  core  is 
essentially  Christian.  It  would  be  a  large 
assumption  indeed  for  any  thinker  to  arrogate 
to  himself  a  complete  possession  and  mastery 
of  essential  Christian  truth.  The  sum  of  Chris- 
tian truth,  if  possible  of  apprehension,  would 
doubtless  be  found  coextensive  with  the  facts 
of  the  moral  universe.  An  inseparable  feature 
of  religion,  however  poor  the  contents  of  the 


SOURCE  AND  SCOPE  25 

religion  itself,  is  that  the  worshiper  seeks  ad- 
dress to  a  being  whom  he  regards  as  greatly 
superior  to  himself.  The  higher  the  religious 
faith,  the  more  exalted  will  be  the  being  wor- 
shiped. A  fact  of  increasing  impressiveness 
the  more  it  is  explored,  is  that  of  a  high  and 
reverent  Godward  attitude  which  characterizes 
many  of  the  heterogeneous  religious  faiths.  The 
larger  facts  of  these  faiths,  the  facts  really  in- 
spirational and  vital,  if  separated  from  their 
nonessential  associations,  could  be  normally 
incorporated  and  domesticated  in  any  reason- 
able system  of  Christian  truth.  It  should  be 
no  cause  for  wonderment  that  there  are  many 
diverse  expressions  of  religious  faith.  Even 
within  the  pale  of  credal  Christianity  there  are 
many  diverse  views  which  separate  the  denom- 
inations from  each  other.  And,  unfortunately, 
the  separating  facts  are  usually  the  nonessen- 
tial, the  non vital.  If  such  is  the  situation 
within  the  recognized  pale  of  the  Christian 
Church,  the  diversities  of  nonconforming  faiths 
should  certainly  furnish  no  occasion  for  sur- 
prise. But,  in  the  larger  measurements,  the 
standing  and  falling  articles  of  the  great  ethnic 
faiths  will,  at  least  very  many  of  them,  be  found 
closely  akin.  The  central  facts  of  the  great  re- 
ligions, when  stripped  of  the  burden  which  igno- 
rance and  superstition  have  imposed  upon  them, 


26  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

will  largely  evince  a  common  source.  Back  of 
all  systems,  and  diversities  of  systems,  man  is 
universally  religious  because  God  is  forever 
inspiring  himself  into  the  human  soul. 

Man  is  God's  supreme  counterpart  in  the 
universe.  He  was  made  in  God's  own  likeness. 
God  made  man  for  himself.  In  a  sense  of 
divinest  significance,  he  is  God's  own  child. 
He  is  endowed  with  moral,  intellectual,  and 
affectional  faculties,  faculties  capable  of  infinite 
expansion,  that  through  an  eternity  he  might 
grow  into  an  ever-increasing  knowledge  of, 
into  an  ever-increasing  likeness  to,  and  an  ever- 
enriching  companionship  with,  God.  More 
than  to  all  the  physical  immensities  does  God's 
thought  go  out  to  the  human  soul.  Man  is  the 
supreme  object  of  God's  love  and  nurture.  He 
is  still  infantile.  This  is  the  way  God  started 
him.  It  is  only  with  childish  beginnings  that 
man  at  his  best  is  at  present  able  to  apprehend 
in  any  measure  the  wealth  of  his  Father's  love. 
But  this  being  is  in  the  making  for  a  great 
future.  God  values  him.  God  loves  him. 
To  promote  his  intellectual  and  moral  educa- 
tion God  has  lifted  up  around  him  the  staging 
of  the  material  universe,  and  has  thrown  open 
the  portals  of  endless  and  widening  spiritual 
vistas.  The  forces  of  the  moral  universe  are 
subsidized    for    man's    glorification.     The    su- 


SOURCE  AND  SCOPE  27 

preme  and  unending  task,  so  far  as  this  world 
is  concerned,  is  so  to  inspire,  to  educate,  to 
discipline,  to  develop  man,  that  some  time  later 
in  the  seonian  order  he  may  come  to  superlative 
exaltation.  It  would  thus  be  strangely  anom- 
alous indeed  if  God  should  not  continuously 
stimulate  and  agitate  the  human  soul  with  a 
touch  of  himself.  It  matters  little  that  in  his 
immaturity  man  has  so  little  apprehended  God's 
thought.  The  truth  remains  that  God  has 
kept  himself  in  such  unbroken  touch  with  the 
human  spirit  that  man  has  never  been  able  to 
divest  himself  of  the  consciousness,  however 
vague,  of  the  divine  nearness.  The  voice  of 
the  Spirit  has  never  been  altogether  silent  in  the 
human  breast.  Man's  religious  nature,  his 
divinest  endowment,  has  never  been  permitted 
wholly  to  die  within  him.  By  virtue  of  this 
very  nature,  and  of  God's  ceaseless  moral  touch 
upon  his  life,  man  is  indeed  "incurably  re- 
ligious." 

We  need  not  travel  far  into  the  fields  of  his- 
toric evidence  to  confirm  the  essential  and  uni- 
versal religiousness  of  man.  Let  it  be  fully 
conceded  that  much  of  the  religious  expression 
of  the  race  is  both  rudimentary,  superstitious 
and  unlovely.  It  still  remains  true  that  a 
great  wealth  of  noble  religious  expression  has 
uttered  itself  outside  the  pale  of  credal  Chris- 


28  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

tianity.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  expression 
is  often  coupled  with  high  intelhgence  and  pure 
character.  It  is  farthest  possible  from  either 
my  desire  or  purpose  to  extol  any  nonevan- 
gelical  faith  above  the  Christian  discipleship  of 
the  New  Testament,  but  it  would  be  neither  an 
intelligent,  noble,  nor  candid  attitude  to  ignore 
or  to  shun  the  outstanding  values  of  much 
religious  character  whose  credal  beHefs  do  not 
match  with  the  teachings  of  the  evangelical 
standards.  The  truth  is  that  a  high  order  of 
religious  life,  both  in  and  out  of  "orthodoxy," 
is  characterized  on  the  part  of  its  representa- 
tives by  great  diversities  both  of  belief  and 
experience.  The  psychology  of  religious  ex- 
perience in  diverse  lives  is  as  yet  only  partially 
explored.  I  am  unable  to  resist  the  impression 
that  many  teachers  who  have  acquired  recogni- 
tion as  expositors  of  the  faith  have  too  often 
assigned  narrow  horizons  to  Christian  truth. 
It  is  beyond  question  that  the  creeds  of  many 
of  the  denominations  are  such  as  to  exclude 
from  their  fellowship  many  men  of  highest 
thought  and  purest  lives.  But  is  not  this  very 
condition  one  against  which  Christ  distinctly 
warned  his  disciples?  All  the  great  religions 
have  developed  saintly  characters.  Even  pa- 
ganism, however  exceptionally,  has  its  saints. 
But  do  not  all  the  saints  really  belong  to  God? 


SOURCE  AND  SCOPE  29 

The  united  ecclesiastical  rosters  of  the  world 
would  not  be  found  to  contain  the  names  of  all 
the  saints. 

If  God  by  his  Spirit  is  dealing  with  universal 
man,  it  ought  to  be  unthinkable  that  no  fruits, 
except  in  Christian  lands,  are  being  gathered 
from  these  divine  processes.  Such  a  conclusion 
would  be  in  itself  irrational.  It  would  be  a 
reflection  against  God.  It  is  a  conclusion 
worthy  of  an  atheistic  parentage.  To  say 
nothing  about  the  great  ethnic  religions  out- 
side of  Christendom,  there  are  many  in  Chris- 
tian communities,  men  of  pure  and  noble  char- 
acter, who  are  unable  to  put  themselves  in  in- 
tellectual sympathy  with  the  historic  creeds  of 
Christianity.  Yet  what  human  authority  is 
competent  to  decide  that  these  men  are  not 
really  citizens  of  the  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ? 
I  do  not  disparage  the  formulated  creed.  Most 
men  need  credal  guidance.  It  serves  as  an 
anchor  to  hold  them  in  hours  of  stress  and 
storm.  Comparatively  few  in  the  great  masses 
do  such  thorough  and  competent  thinking  for 
themselves  as  to  remove  them  from  the  neces- 
sity of  the  schoolmaster's  guidance.  The  creeds 
have  served  immeasurable  values,  and  are 
worthy  of  all  historic  honor.  They  are  the 
wrought  products  of  mighty  minds,  and  they 
have  furnished  the  battle  cries  of  the  armies  of 


30  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

righteousness  in  periods  when  the  very  powers 
of  darkness  have  leagued  themselves  against  the 
foundations  of  Christian  truth.  The  formation 
of  creeds  is  inevitable  both  from  the  nature  and 
needs  of  faith.  We  no  sooner  have  an  expe- 
rience than  there  arises  the  prompting  to  give 
some  intellectual  accounting  of  the  experience 
itself.  The  religious  life  forms  no  exception  to 
this  law.  This  is  the  meaning  of  philosophy, 
the  meaning  of  theology.  The  primitive  Chris- 
tian experience  was  so  unique,  so  signal,  so  self- 
satisfying  to  its  recipient,  as  to  preclude  all  con- 
cern about  its  philosophy.  It  was  simply 
thought  of,  and  very  rightly,  as  a  direct  incom- 
ing of  God  into  the  individual  soul.  Like  the 
blind  man  whose  sight  was  restored,  he  only 
knew  and  thought  that  whereas  he  was  bhnd, 
he  was  now  able  to  see.  But  historic  Chris- 
tianity had  not  gone  far  on  its  journey  before 
it  felt  the  necessity  of  a  frank  dealing  with 
philosophy.  This  conviction  accounts  largely 
for  the  form  of  Saint  John's  Gospel. 

We  must  wage  battle  neither  against  theology 
nor  philosophy  in  themselves  considered.  Both 
are  the  indispensable  handmaids  of  faith.  The 
historic  creeds  were  philosophical  and  theological 
necessities  of  the  ages  which  gave  them  birth. 
What  we  need  to  remember  is  that  the  creeds 
are  not  infallible.     They  are  human  products. 


SOURCE  AND  SCOPE  SI 

They  are  not  necessarily  immortal.  Rising 
and  advancing  Christian  thought  may  out- 
grow and  supersede  them.  One  of  the  weak- 
nesses of  denominationalism  has  been  an  idol- 
atry of  creeds.  Creed  has  been  exalted  above 
character.  It  has  too  often  appeared  that  if  a 
man  were  Puritanically  orthodox  in  his  intel- 
lectual creed,  lapses  in  his  moral  character 
might  easily  be  overlooked.  Men  have  too 
easily  assumed  that  if  their  intellectual  beliefs 
could  be  religiously  approved,  they  are  safe 
within  the  fold.  This  is  not  the  New  Testa- 
ment view.  So  far  as  intellectual  belief  is  con- 
cerned, the  very  devils  are  orthodox.  They 
believe,  and  tremble  while  they  believe.  It  is 
this  kind  of  orthodoxy  which  is  receiving  caustic 
and  merciless  arraignment  in  current  literature. 
The  accepted  literary  standards  of  the  present 
are  testing  the  values  of  Christian  character, 
not  by  the  correctness  of  a  man's  intellectual 
beliefs,  but  by  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  as  shown 
in  life  and  conduct.  And  this  is  of  momentous 
significance  as  a  sign  of  clear  spiritual  vision 
and  of  moral  demand  which  are  voicing  them- 
selves in  the  thought  of  the  age. 

However  great  the  function  of  the  intellect 
as  a  conservator  of  sanity  in  thought,  it  is  worth 
our  while  to  take  note  of  the  fact  that  the  most 
healthy  present-day  philosophy  does  not  ac- 


32  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

credit  the  intellect  as  being  the  chief  fountain 
source  of  truth  for  life.  Moral  wholeness  comes 
from  inward  spiritual  health.  This  is  some- 
thing that  lies  deeper  in  the  nature  than  intel- 
lect. This  is  a  quality  in  character  which  the 
most  brilliant  intellectual  processes  can  neither 
create  nor  secure.  If  one  has  this  quality,  he  is 
in  possession  of  something  infinitely  more  val- 
uable than  the  mere  ability  to  pursue,  however 
brilliantly,  a  line  of  intellectual  logic,  or  to 
pronounce  a  shibboleth.  Whoever  has  this 
quality  carries  within  him  essentially  the  spirit 
of  reverence  and  of  worship.  His  soul  bends 
its  knees  humbly  before  the  Most  High.  There 
is  installed  in  such  a  breast  the  most  effective 
norm  of  character.  No  man  whose  inner 
motives  are  shaped  by  high  and  worshipful 
thought  can  be  other  than  in  himself  noble. 
He,  whatever  his  incidental  defect  of  creed, 
does  not  himself  rest  far  this  side  of  saintly 
character. 

Emerson,  as  also  Matthew  Arnold,  was  a 
devout  believer  in  moral  law.  He  believed  that 
the  universe  is  finally  dominated  by  moral  pur- 
pose. There  is  a  power  not  ourselves  that 
makes  for  righteousness.     He  says: 

The  perception  of  this  law  awakens  in  the  mind 
a  sentiment  which  we  call  the  religious  sentiment, 
and  which  makes  our  highest  happiness.     Wonder- 


SOURCE  AND  SCOPE  33 

ful  in  its  power  to  charm  and  to  command.  It  is 
a  mountain  air.  It  is  the  embalmer  of  the  world. 
It  makes  the  sky  and  the  hills  sublime,  and  the 
silent  song  of  the  stars  is  in  it.  It  is  the  beatitude 
of  man.  It  makes  him  inimitable.  When  he  says 
"I  ought";  when  love  warns  him;  when  he  chooses, 
warned  from  on  high,  the  good  and  great  deed; 
then,  deep  melodies  wander  through  his  soul  from 
supreme  wisdom.  Then  he  can  worship  and  be 
enlarged  by  his  worship;  for  he  can  never  go  be- 
hind this  sentiment.  All  the  expressions  of  this 
sentiment  are  sacred  and  permanent  in  proportion 
to  their  purity.  They  affect  us  more  than  all  other 
compositions.  The  sentences  of  the  olden  time, 
which  ejaculate  this  piety,  are  still  fresh  and  fragrant. 
And  the  unique  impression  of  Jesus  upon  man- 
kind, whose  name  is  not  so  much  written  as  plowed 
into  the  history  of  this  world,  is  proof  of  the  subtle 
virtue  of  this  infusion. 


Emerson,  though  honest  to  the  core  in  his 
intellectual  convictions,  was  doubtless  something 
of  a  pagan  in  his  creed.  But  in  moral  character, 
as  measured  by  his  life  and  conduct,  he  could 
pass  in  the  social  exchanges  as  a  saint.  It  was 
of  him  that  his  genial  friend,  Father  Taylor, 
chaplain  of  the  Seaman's  Bethel  in  Boston,  said : 
"Emerson  may  finally  go  to  hell,  but  if  so,  one 
thing  is  sure:  the  atmosphere  of  the  place  will 
change,  and  population  will  set  that  way." 

Abraham  Lincoln  is  a  character  revered 
throughout  civilization.  In  nobility  of  ideals, 
in  Christlike  love  of  men,  in  sacrificial  service. 


34  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

in  poise  of  character,  in  clarity  and  loftiness 
of  conviction,  in  purity  of  life,  few,  if  any, 
have  excelled  him.  If  he  had  been,  as  added 
to  his  known  qualities  and  deeds,  a  conspicu- 
ous church  worker,  his  name  unquestionably 
would  be  written  high  in  the  calendar  of  elect 
Christian  lives.  But  was  he  really  less  a  saint 
because  his  name  was  not  written  on  some 
church  register  .^^  It  is  doubtless  highly  impor- 
tant for  most  Christians  to  be  formally  en- 
rolled in  church  membership.  If  for  no  other 
reason,  most  persons,  if  they  would  secure 
for  themselves  a  needed  Christian  nurture, 
require  the  intimate  spiritual  instructions  and 
fellowships  which  the  Church  alone  best  fur- 
nishes. Emphasizing  all  this,  it  must  still  be 
rationally  admitted,  I  think,  that  formal 
enrollment  in  church  membership  is  not  a 
standing  or  falling  condition  of  vital  member- 
ship in  the  kingdom  of  Christ. 

Lincoln  had  some  intellectual  diflSculties 
which  made  impossible  his  easy  acceptance 
at  all  points  of  a  credal  orthodoxy.  But  in 
essential  quality,  his  life,  in  gigantic  stature, 
and  in  the  whitest  light  of  publicity,  stands  in 
history  as  beautifully  Christian. 

To  Mr.  Henry  B.  Rankin,  intimate  friend 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  earlier  years,  we  are  in- 
debted   for    an    invaluable    record    as    falling 


SOURCE  AND  SCOPE  35 

directly  from  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  lips.  In  a 
political  campaign  in  which  Peter  Cartwright 
was  a  rival  candidate  against  him  for  Con- 
gress, Lincoln  had  been  charged  with  being 
an  infidel.  To  this  charge  he  made  no  reply 
in  his  campaign  speeches.  But  to  Mr.  Ran- 
kin's mother,  Lincoln's  personal  friend,  he 
made  a  private  statement  of  his  personal 
faith,  conditioning  that  the  statement  itself 
should  be  in  no  way  used  in  the  campaign. 
He  said: 

I  will  not  discuss  the  character  and  religion  of 
Jesus  Christ  on  the  stump!  That  is  no  place  for 
it.  At  the  time  you  refer  to  I  was  having  serious 
questionings  about  some  portions  of  my  former 
implicit  faith  in  the  Bible.  The  influences  that 
drew  me  into  such  doubts  were  strong  ones — men 
having  the  widest  culture  and  strongest  minds  of 
any  I  had  known  up  to  that  time.  In  the  midst 
of  those  shadows  and  questionings,  before  I  could 
see  my  way  clear  to  decide  on  them,  there  came 
into  my  life  sad  events  and  a  loss  that  you  were 
close  to,  and  you  knew  a  great  deal  about  how 
hard  they  were  for  me,  for  you  were,  at  that  time, 
a  mutual  friend.  Those  days  of  trouble  found  me 
tossed  amidst  a  sea  of  questionings.  They  piled 
big  upon  me,  experiences  that  brought  with  them 
great  strains  upon  my  emotional  and  mental  life. 
Through  all  I  groped  my  way  until  I  found  a  stronger 
and  higher  grasp  of  thought,  one  that  reached  be- 
yond this  life  with  a  clearness  and  satisfaction  I 
had  never  known  before.  The  Scriptures  unfolded 
before  me  with  a  deeper  and  more  logical  appeal, 
through  these  new  experiences,  than  anything  else 


M  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

I  could  find  to  turn  to,  or  ever  before  had  found 
in  them. 

I  do  not  claim  that  all  my  doubts  were  removed 
then,  or  since  that  time  have  been  swept  away. 
They  are  not.  Probably  it  is  to  be  my  lot  to  go  on 
in  a  twilight,  feeling  and  reasoning  my  way  through 
life,  as  questioning,  doubting  Thomas  did.  But 
in  my  poor,  maimed,  w'thered  way,  I  bear  with 
me  as  I  go  on  a  seeking  spirit  of  desire  for  a  faith 
that  was  with  him  of  the  olden  time,  who,  in  his 
need,  as  I  in  mine,  exclaimed,  "Help  thou  my 
unbelief.'" 

I  doubt  the  possibility  or  propriety  of  settling 
the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  models  of  man- 
made  creeds  and  dogmas.  It  was  a  spirit  in  the 
life  that  he  laid  stress  on  and  taught,  if  I  read 
aright.     I  know  I  see  it  to  be  so  with  me. 

The  fundamental  truths  reported  in  the  four 
Gospels  as  from  the  lips  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  that 
I  first  heard  from  the  lips  of  my  mother,  are  settled 
and  fixed  moral  precepts  with  me.  I  have  con- 
cluded to  dismiss  from  my  mind  the  debatable 
wrangles  that  once  perplexed  me  with  distractions 
that  stirred  up,  but  never  absolutely  settled  any- 
thing. I  have  tossed  aside  with  the  doubtful  dif- 
ferences which  divide  denominations — sweeping  them 
all  out  of  my  mind  among  the  nonessentials.  I 
have  ceased  to  follow  such  discussions  or  be  in- 
terested in  them. 

I  cannot  without  mental  reservations  assent  to 
long  and  complicated  creeds  and  catechisms.  If 
the  church  should  ask  simply  for  assent  to  the 
Saviour's  statement  of  the  substance  of  the  law: 
*'Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy 
heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy  mind, 
and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself" — that  church  would 
I  gladly  unite  with. 


SOURCE  AND  SCOPE  37 

There  are  many  known  instances  of  indi- 
viduals who  have  been  swayed  and  molded 
by  high  religious  convictions  and  motives, 
convictions  and  motives  essentially  Christian, 
who  nevertheless  have  not  been  able  to  place 
themselves  in  convincing  sympathy  with  the 
credal  conditions  of  church  membership.  The 
difficulty  may  have  gone  even  to  the  inability 
of  accepting  the  credal  interpretations  of 
Christ's  character  and  mission,  yet  with  their 
hearts,  the  instruments  through  which  men 
believe  unto  righteousness,  these  same  men 
passionately  embrace  Christ's  spirit  and  motive. 

Instances  need  not  be  multiphed.  I  have 
cited  the  foregoing  cases  in  illustration  of  the 
very  truth  which  Christ  himself  announced, 
namely,  that  the  Kingdom  over  which  he 
presides  is  something  far  larger  and  may  be 
something  far  different  than  the  entire  sum 
of  ecclesiastical  organizations.  The  citizenship 
of  this  Kingdom  is  made  up  of  all  who  are 
in  vital  moral  harmony  with  Christ,  and  in 
the  final  enrollment  these  in  great  numbers 
shall  come  up  from  the  north  and  the  south, 
from  the  east  and  from  the  west. 

Whatever  discriminating  safeguards  should  be 
put  around  these  facts  in  Christian  teaching, 
the  facts  themselves  are  entitled  to  a  rational 
and  sympathetic  hospitality.    While,  upon  the 


38  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

one  hand,  it  is  clearly  the  duty  of  evangelical 
thought  to  sedulously  guard  itself  against 
error,  it  is,  on  the  other  hand,  not  less  its  sacred 
obligation  to  be  on  guard  against  putting  too 
narrow  constructions  upon  the  world-mission 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  dealing  with  the  hearts 
and  lives  of  men. 

However  preeminently  true  it  is,  and  such 
I  fully  believe  to  be  the  fact,  that  the 
Holy  Scriptures  contain  the  highest  and  com- 
pletest  record  of  God's  revelation  of  himself 
to  elect  souls,  it  still  remains  true  that  the 
seat  of  revelation  for  all  ages  and  races  is  alone 
in  the  human  breast.  In  its  distinctive  quality, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  special  inspiration  of 
prophet  and  apostle,  the  book  that  contains 
the  photographic  record  of  the  life,  character 
and  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ  must  and  will 
remain,  however  challenged,  the  supreme  utter- 
ance for  the  highest  religion.  Yet,  in  our 
habitual  use  of  the  Bible,  it  is  easy  for  us  to 
overlook  the  fact  that  in  its  every  utterance, 
both  in  the  Old  and  in  the  New  Testaments, 
we  realize  final  validity  only  as  they  make 
appeal  to,  and  find  approval  from,  the  moral 
and  spiritual  senses  resident  within  us.  The 
moral  and  spiritual  constitution  of  man  is 
fundamental  and  remains  the  same  from  age 
to  age.     However  distinctive  the  message,  or 


SOURCE  AND  SCOPE  39 

the  purpose  for  which  it  is  given,  it  remains 
true  that  God  reveals  himself  to  men  to-day 
on  the  same  grounds  and  by  the  same  processes 
as  in  any  past  age.  To  the  soul  that  is  seer- 
like, consecrated  and  worshipful,  there  comes 
as  certainly  now  the  heavenly  vision  as  to 
Moses  or  to  Paul.  Really,  the  divine  reveal- 
ing ought  now  to  be  more  richly,  more  perfectly 
apprehended  by  saintly  thought  than  ever 
before.  For  many  centuries  the  devout  mind 
of  the  Church  has  been  perpetually  feeding 
itself  upon  the  spiritual  revelations  of  both 
the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments.  The  teach- 
ing of  the  records  has  received  continuously 
fresh  and  enlarging  interpretation  from  the 
experience  and  knowledge  of  the  Christian 
generations.  The  Church,  to  whom  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  ever  showing  the  things  of  Christ, 
is  now  in  possession  of  a  fuller  and  richer 
revelation  of  Christ's  character  and  mission 
than  was  ever  before  apprehended  in  human 
thought.  And  this  growth  in  spiritual  knowl- 
edge will  ever  continue  through  indefinite 
time  to  come.  For  Christianity  the  Bible  con- 
tains the  major  premise  which  must  forever 
remain  normative  and  regulative  for  the  spir- 
itual life.  But  the  inclusions  posited  in  this 
premise  are  far  larger,  more  various  and  preg- 
nant  in   meaning,   than   have   ever  yet   been 


40  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

apprehended   either  by  exploring   mind   or  in 
saintly  experience. 

The  Church  of  final  conquest  will  make 
all  its  advances  under  the  inspiration  of  new 
vision  and  an  ever-enlarging  apprehension  of 
Christian  truth.  This  Church  will  require  in 
its  human  leadership  the  inspired  seer,  the 
soul  with  the  mystic  spiritual  vision,  the  saint 
who  experimentally  knows  both  the  rapture 
of  transfiguration  heights  and  the  stress  of 
service  in  the  shadowed  valleys  where  demons 
are  vexing  the  fives  of  men. 


n 

THE  SPIRITUAL  SENSE 


God  is  not  dumb  that  he  should  speak  no  more; 

If  thou  hast  wanderings  in  the  wilderness 
And  findest  not  Sinai,  'tis  thy  soul  is  poor. 

— J.  R.  Lowell. 

Without  thyself,  O  man,  thou  hast  no  means  to  look  for,  by 
which  thou  mayest  know  God.  Thou  must  abide  within 
thyself;  to  the  light  that  is  in  thee  thou  must  turn  thee; 
there  thou  wilt  find  it  and  nowhere  else.  God  is  nearest 
unto  thee  and  to  every  man.  He  that  goes  forth  of  himself 
to  any  creature,  thereby  to  know  God,  departs  from  God. 
God  is  nearer  unto  every  man  than  himself,  because  he  pene- 
trates the  most  inward  and  intimate  parts  of  man  and  is 
the  Life  of  the  inmost  spirit.  Mind,  therefore,  the  Light 
that  is  in  thee. — Peter  Balling. 

When  we  call  man  a  being  of  spiritual  endowments,  we 
mean  that  he  is  possessor  of  the  powers  out  of  which  mo- 
rality and  religion  have  been  brought  forth,  and  is  open  to 
all  the  possibilities  that  rationality,  morality,  and  religion 
imply.  By  possession  of  his  rational  nature  he  has  moral 
responsibility  and  religious  powers,  and  is  capable  of  rising 
to  life  above  sensuous  and  temporal  things,  in  the  fellowship 
of  the  eternal. — Doctor   William  Newton  Clarke. 

There  remains  the  greatest  of  all  man's  higher  senses,  his 
sense  of  the  spiritual.  We  cannot,  in  one  way,  speak  of  that 
as  a  new  sense.  One  would  call  it  the  oldest  in  existence. 
Assuredly  what  it  stands  for  is  the  oldest  thing  in  the  uni- 
verse. And  yet,  as  related  to  human  life  as  a  whole,  it  may 
still  be  regarded  as  the  youngest  of  the  faculties.  Man's 
animal  nature  is  old  almost  as  the  world.  It  derives  from 
all  the  million  years  of  our  planet's  animal  story.  Compared 
with  this,  his  spiritual  quality  is  indeed  a  late  arrival.  It  is 
as  yet  a  mere  streak  on  the  top  of  his  nature,  a  babe  new- 
born amid  the  ferocious  tribe  of  his  animalities.  But  the 
babe  has  all  the  future  before  it.  That  streak  of  dawn 
means  a  long  and  splendid  day  to  come.  .  .  .  The  religious 
feeling,  that  baffling  mystery  to  the  psychologist;  with  its 
mystic  exaltations,  with  its  attendant  phenomena  of  dreams, 
of  vision,  of  psychic  forces ;  with  its  stupendous  moral  driv- 
ing power,  with  its  possibilities  of  all  that  is  exquisite  in 
feeling;  with  its  hints  of  unimaginable  acquisitions  yet  to 
be  realized;  the  religious  feeling,  we  say,  is  of  all  the  senses 
of  man's  inner  nature  the  one  that  carries  in  it  the  richest 
promise. — /.  Brierley. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  SPIRITUAL  SENSE 

Upon  the  threshold  of  this  chapter  I  tarry 
briefly  to  take  note  of  a  faculty  which  may 
be  named  the  "psychic  sense."  Psychic  re- 
search, especially  in  recent  years,  has  engaged 
much  critical  study.  It  must  be  admitted,  I 
think,  that,  after  all  deductions  are  made  for 
mistakes  of  method,  or  for  fraudulent  processes, 
this  study  has  yielded  a  mass  of  phenomena 
worthy  of  the  most  scientific  investigation.  I 
do  not  propose  here  to  enter,  pro  or  con,  into 
the  merits  of  this  subject.  The  reality,  how- 
ever, of  a  vision  of  things,  ordinarily  unseen 
by  men,  is  so  well  attested  from  sources  both 
numerous  and  commanding  as  to  make  skep- 
ticism of  the  phenomena  unreasonable.  As 
competent  witnesses  to  the  reality  of  such 
phenomena,  we  might  cite  the  names  of  James 
Russell  Lowell,  William  Stead,  and  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge.  These  are  a  few  from  great  numbers, 
who  give  direct,  and  seemingly  reliable,  testi- 
mony of  experiences  with  "presences"  which 
belong  to  the  realm  of  mystery.  There  is 
also  a  large  literature  relating  to  experiences 
designated  under  the  general  name  of  "trance" 

43 


44  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

— a  state  in  which  the  soul  seems  to  have 
passed  out  of  the  body  or  to  be  rapt  in  vision. 
In  the  book  of  Acts  it  is  said  of  Saint  Peter 
that  once  "he  fell  into  a  trance,  and  saw  heaven 
opened."  Was  this  experience  akin  to  that 
of  Saint  Paul,  who  in  a  vision  was  caught  up 
to  the  third  heaven,  himself  not  knowing 
whether  he  was  in  or  out  of  the  body.^  For 
the  trance  experience  a  multitude  of  witnesses 
could  be  named,  among  whom  are  Charles 
Kingsley,  Alfred  Tennyson,  and  J.  A.  Symonds. 
There  is  also  a  strange  borderland  of  impres- 
sions which  is  frequently  entered  under  con- 
ditions of  anaesthesia.  In  this  state  voluntary 
movements  are  suspended,  and  the  vital  func- 
tions reduced  to  the  lowest  action.  In  passing 
into  this  state  the  mystical  consciousness  is 
stimulated  in  an  extraordinary  degree.  "Depth 
beyond  depth  of  truth  seems  revealed"  to  the 
subject.  William  James,  a  foremost  student 
in  this  field  of  phenomena,  writes: 

Some  years  ago  I  myself  made  some  observations 
on  this  aspect  of  nitrous  oxide  intoxication,  and 
reported  them  in  print.  One  conclusion  was  forced 
upon  my  mind  at  that  time,  and  my  impression 
of  its  truth  has  ever  since  remained  unshaken. 
It  is  that  our  normal  waking  consciousness,  rational 
consciousness  as  we  call  it,  is  but  one  special  type 
of  consciousness,  whilst  all  about  it,  parted  from  it 
by  the  filmiest  of  screens,  there  lie  potential  forms 
of   consciousness   entirely   different.      We   may   go 


THE  SPIRITUAL  SENSE  45 

through  life  without  suspecting  their  existence;  but 
apply  the  requisite  stimulus,  and  at  a  touch  they 
are  there  in  all  their  completeness,  definite  types 
of  mentality  which  probably  somewhere  have  their 
field  of  application  and  adaptation.  No  account 
of  the  universe  in  its  totality  can  be  final  which 
leaves  these  other  forms  of  consciousness  quite 
disregarded. 

I  am  induced  to  mention  these  various 
phenomena  because  they  seem  to  indicate  a 
multiform  susceptibility,  potentiality,  of  the 
soul  for  psychical  experiences  from  which  the 
ordinary,  perhaps  the  normal,  life  of  men  seems 
excluded.  These  susceptibilities,  however  they 
may  be  finally  classified,  or  validated,  would 
seem  to  indicate  that  the  human  soul,  if  it 
could  only  make  connections,  might  become  a 
free  citizen,  and  explorer  of  perhaps  innumer- 
able realms  which  now  lie  mostly  beyond  the 
range  of  observation.  They  suggest  at  least 
that  the  soul  is  a  marvelous  entity,  a  some- 
thing of  illimitable  possibilities,  a  something 
which  may  very  well  be  akin  to  divinity. 

For  the  purposes  of  this  writing  I  do  not 
at  all  identify  what  I  have  termed  the  * 'psychic 
sense,"  whatever  it  may  be,  with  the  "spiritual 
sense."  The  latter  is  a  racial  possession,  a 
something  certain  of  manifestation  in  all  high 
religious  experience. 

Unfortunately,  it  has  not  been,  until  very 


46  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

recently,  common  to  philosophy  to  accord 
much  place  or  validity  to  the  religious  sense. 
This  sense  has  been  much  treated  as  though 
it  were  the  offspring  of  outgrown  superstitions. 
By  some  schools  of  philosophy  it  has  been 
contemptuously  dismissed  as  though  it  were 
the  creation  of  a  priestcraft,  a  kind  of  voca- 
tion invented  for  the  purpose  of  furnishing  a 
livelihood  for  a  school  of  men  skilled  in  jug- 
gling with  human  hopes  and  fears.  The  serious 
advocates  of  such  thought  have  simply,  if  at 
all,  put  themselves  into  history  as  purblind 
observers  of  the  universe.  Their  thought- 
product  is  in  no  worthy  sense  to  be  even  men- 
tioned as  philosophy. 

The  phenomena  of  religion  have  increasingly 
forced  recognition  for  themselves.  No  philos- 
ophy worthy  of  the  name  is  now  indifferent  to 
their  claims.  Our  modern  libraries  abound  in 
works  devoted  to  the  psychology  of  religion. 
William  James,  Borden  P.  Bowne,  Edwin  D. 
Starbuck,  George  A.  Coe,  Edward  P.  Ames, 
William  E.  Hocking — all  American  writers — 
are  a  few  among  many  who  have  furnished 
illuminating  studies  in  this  vital  field. 

The  modern  psychologists,  quite  generally, 
enter  their  protests  against  the  method  of  the 
old  philosophy  which  mapped  out  the  human 
mind  into  "Intellect,  Sensibilities,  and  W^ill," 


THE  SPIRITUAL  SENSE  47 

each  a  water-tight  compartment  susceptible 
of  being  independently  examined  by  itself. 
The  normal  mental  life,  however  various  and 
complex  its  functioning  powers,  is  one.  Man 
exercises  the  same  faculties  in  his  religious 
thought  and  activities  as  in  his  vocational 
pursuits.  His  religiousness  means  that  he  gives 
a  special  direction,  emphasis,  and  application 
to  religion  of  the  same  mental  totality  which 
he  gives  to  other  objects  which  may  engross 
his  energies.  The  quality  of  the  object  pur- 
sued is  the  decisive  thing.  If  one's  mentality 
is  absorbed  in  selfish  greeds  or  in  low  ambi- 
tions, his  very  character  itself  will  take  on  the 
qualities  which  he  pursues.  As  a  man  thinketh 
in  his  heart,  so  is  he.  Fortunately,  the  qual- 
ities of  motives  are  so  well  understood  that 
none  need  mistake  as  to  the  effect  of  an  en- 
grossing affection  on  character. 

So  far  as  the  spiritual  sense  is  concerned,  it 
would  seem  to  matter  little  what  philosophy 
may  decide  as  to  its  genesis.  All  agree  that 
this  sense  is  potential  in  universal  human  nature. 
It  is  equally  agreed  that  of  all  motives  which 
transform  and  uplift  character  none  is  so 
morally  dynamic  as  the  motives  of  a  high 
religious  faith.  A  psychology  which  could 
trace  the  genesis  and  evolution  of  the  spiritual 
sense  would  not  thereby  detract  in  the  slight- 


48  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

est  from  its  moral  significance  for  human  life. 
The  spiritual  sense  is  to  be  philosophically 
reckoned  with.  It  is  primal  in  human  nature. 
The  magnetic  needle  points  not  more  certainly 
to  the  pole  than  does  this  sense  to  a  divine 
source.  Without  its  activity  man  can  have 
knowledge  neither  of  God  nor  of  a  spiritual 
universe.  Sadly,  the  vision  of  this  sense  may 
be  greatly  obscured.  Its  accompanying  con- 
ception of  the  character  of  God  may  be  very 
unworthy.  But  if  the  soul  is  to  have  any 
inspiration,  any  revelation,  in  spiritual  things, 
these  can  come  to  consciousness  only  at  the 
seat  of  the  spiritual  sense.  The  spiritual  sense, 
as,  indeed,  the  faculty  of  conscience,  is  sub- 
ject to  education.  It  is  the  function  of  Chris- 
tian teaching,  from  whatever  source,  to  carry 
light  and  truth  to  the  spiritual  understanding. 
*'The  entrance  of  thy  words  giveth  light." 
"If  therefore  thine  eye  be  single,  thy  whole 
body  shall  be  full  of  light."  But  the  spiritual 
sense  is  the  eye  of  the  soul.  It  is  the  cleansed 
vision  of  this  sense  that  enables  the  pure  in 
heart  to  see  God. 

Science  asserts  that  the  laws  of  nature  are 
absolutely  reliable.  Eucken  has  repeatedly 
stated  that  if  reason  does  not  reside  in  the 
whole  structure  of  the  universe,  it  cannot  be 
found  in  any  single  spot.     The  order  of  the 


THE  SPIRITUAL  SENSE  49 

world  about  us  is  not  a  lie.  We  live  in  a  sys- 
tem where  aptitudes  are  met  by  correspond- 
ences. If  for  the  eye  there  is  light,  if  for  the 
reason  truth,  then  man  is  simply  mocked  if 
for  the  spiritual  sense  there  is  no  responding 
God.  It  would  be  egregiously  absurd  to  de- 
clare that  we  live  in  a  system  which  makes 
infallible  response  to  our  physical  senses,  to 
our  appetites,  to  our  reason,  and  yet  totally 
refuses  response  to  our  conscious  moral  and 
spiritual  needs.  This  would  be  a  proclamation 
of  incapacity  against  the  universe.  It  would 
be  to  destroy  by  one  stroke  the  foundations 
of  both  philosophy  and  science.  If  we  live  in 
an  honest  universe,  we  may  implicitly  rely 
upon  an  ample  correspondence  to  man's  high- 
est and  most  imperative  needs — the  needs  of 
his  spiritual  nature.  The  moral  law,  which 
was  to  the  great  philosopher  Kant  a  standing 
wonder,  is  not  a  cheat.  Man's  moral  constitu- 
tion is  not  a  lie.  The  only  answer  to  the 
infinite  in  man,  to  the  irrepressible  and  undy- 
ing hunger  of  his  soul  is — God. 

The  subject  considered  is  one  of  great  grav- 
ity. It  should  be  approached  in  a  spirit  of 
the  utmost  open-mindedness,  candor,  and  rev- 
erence. It  is  due  to  say  that  recent  psychology 
has  effected  marked  revisions  in  the  traditional 
views  of  both  inspiration  and  revelation.    The 


50  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

prevalent,  or  popular,  view  of  these  subjects 
has  been  that  God's  touch  upon  man's  spiritual 
life  is  by  some  outward,  miraculous,  or  phenom- 
enal manifestation,  rather  than  by  a  process 
purely  of  inward  illumination.  I  do  not  forget 
the  outward  historic  processes  by  which  God 
has  furnished  object-lessons  of  himself  and  of  his 
purposes,  that  thereby  men  might  be  schooled  in 
the  methods  of  Providence.  Of  this  method  of 
divine  education  I  shall  speak  elsewhere. 

The  fact  now  to  be  emphasized  is  that  God's 
spiritual  revelations  of  himself,  the  inspirations 
through  which  the  clearest  vision  of  himself 
is  secured,  are  those  which  have  their  seat  and 
operation  solely  within  the  human  breast.  As 
the  ear  can  have  no  hearing  save  by  the  en- 
trance of  sound,  the  eye  no  vision  save  by 
the  entrance  of  light,  so  the  spiritual  sense 
can  have  no  perception  of  God  save  as  it  is 
itself  touched  by  divine  illumination.  This  is 
only  to  say  that  the  spiritual  organ  in  man  is 
inoperative,  without  function,  save  as  evoked 
in  response  to  spiritual  stimuli.  But,  if  the 
spiritual  sense  is  the  organ  through  which  God 
finds  entrance  into,  and  expression  of  himself 
within,  the  soul,  it  is  clear  that  the  soul  itself 
is  a  sacred  temple  into  which  God  enters, 
that  he  may  give  inspirations  and  revelations 
from  himself. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  SENSE  51 

The  fact  of  divine  processes  in  history,  the 
fact  of  the  inspired  records  in  the  Sacred 
Scriptures,  the  supreme  fact  itself  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  portrayed  in  the  New  Testament — 
these  apparently  outward  facts  in  no  way 
invalidate  the  human  soul  as  the  one  seat  of 
divine  inspiration.  The  record  of  revelation, 
voicing  itself  either  in  history  or  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, can  secure  no  appeal,  receive  no  re- 
sponse, until  it  finally  utters  itself  in  the 
inner  courts  of  the  soul.  It  was  a  saying  of 
George  Fox  that  "Though  I  read  of  Christ 
and  God,  I  know  them  only  from  a  like  spirit 
in  my  own  soul."  Not  even  God  can  make  a 
single  spiritual  revelation  of  himself  save  as 
within  man  there  is  an  awakened  and  illu- 
minated spiritual  response.  The  man  with  a 
dormant  spiritual  sense  is  one  who  would  stand 
mute,  dumb,  and  unseeing  in  the  face  of  a 
flaming  Sinai  or  a  pleading  Calvary  of  divine 
manifestation. 

It  hardly  needs  restatement  that  the  spir- 
itual sense  is  God's  one  door  of  approach  to 
the  universal  heart.  The  scientific  unity  of 
the  world  nowhere  more  certainly  holds  than 
in  the  universally  homogeneous  character  of 
man's  moral  and  spiritual  constitution.  God 
deals  spiritually  with  all  men.  A  measure  of  the 
Spirit  is  given  to  every  man  to  profit  withal. 


52  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

It  does  not  follow  that  all  peoples,  certainly 
not  at  the  same  periods  of  history,  should  be 
possessed  of  equally  clear  spiritual  insight. 
Even  members  of  the  same  family,  reared  in 
a  common  environment,  often  show  great  dis- 
similarity in  acuteness  of  perception.  This 
does  not  prove  that  fundamentally  they  have 
dissimilar  constitutions  or  faculties.  So,  how- 
ever much  nations  and  races  may  differ  in 
grasp  upon  certain  conceptions,  this  is  no 
proof  of  fundamental  dissimilarity  in  the  phys- 
ical, mental,  and  moral  constitution  of  the 
race  as  a  whole.  As  to  alertness  of  spiritual 
apprehension,  much  may  depend  upon  both 
racial  heredity  and  environment.  Renan,  in 
an  eloquent  passage,  extols  the  spiritual  genius 
of  the  ancient  Hebrews.  In  his  philosophy 
he  seeks  to  account  for  this  genius  on  the 
ground  of  national  habit  and  environment. 
The  great  seers  of  ancient  Israel,  living  in  the 
white  sunlight  and  under  the  starry  skies  of 
Syria,  whatever  the  deeper  causes,  proved 
themselves  exceptionally  responsive  to  the 
Divine  Presence.  They,  as  no  other  ancient 
characters,  evidenced  both  susceptibility  and 
hospitality  to  the  loftiest  moral  inspirations. 

We  must  hesitate,  however,  to  conclude  that 
Israel  was  the  only  ancient  people  with  whom 
God  was  distinctively  dealing.     If  God  exer- 


THE  SPIRITUAL  SENSE  53 

cises  any  providence  over  the  world,  we  do 
well  to  inquire  as  to  the  scope  of  the  prov- 
idential purpose.  All  of  God's  dealings  in 
history  look  toward  the  finality  of  a  perfected 
humanity.  The  kingdom  of  God  in  the  earth, 
both  in  the  making  and  its  completed  form, 
will  involve  many  other  factors  than  those 
which  we  are  accustomed  to  classify  as  dis- 
tinctively spiritual.  God's  perfected  world 
will  be  characterized  by  law,  art,  intellectual 
enlightenment,  universal  education,  social  and 
industrial  justice,  human  brotherhood,  and  by 
all  conditions  which  must  contribute  to  the 
weal  and  purity  of  society.  A  final  and  perfect 
civilization  was  from  the  beginning  in  God's 
diagram.  For  the  fulfillment  of  this  program, 
God  seems  to  have  assigned  a  division  of 
labor  among  the  nations.  Let  the  Hebrew  seer 
remain  unchallenged  as  the  supreme  moral 
teacher  of  his  times.  It  will  still  remain  true 
that  he  was  very  far  from  contributing  all 
the  elements  requisite  to  God's  ideal  of  civil- 
ization. Indeed,  in  many  of  the  highest  things 
the  Hebrew  was  a  laggard.  In  philosophy 
and  art  he  holds  no  rank  with  his  Grecian 
contemporaries.  In  the  art  of  government  and 
in  the  creation  of  civil  codes  he  is  utterly  over- 
shadowed by  the  Roman.  The  Jews  have  been 
scattered  throughout  civilization,  yet  their  con- 


54  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

tribution  to  world-statesmanship  among  the 
nations  has  been  well-nigh  a  negligible  quantity. 
They  have  a  superficial  reputation  of  being 
great  financiers,  but  the  fact  is  that  a  dozen 
American  financiers  could  be  named  who  have 
amassed  sufficient  wealth  to  buy  out  the  en- 
tire Jewish  world.  In  music,  while  the  Hebrew 
has  given  to  the  worshiping  world  a  first 
song  litany,  yet  in  the  production  of  great 
oratorios  and  symphonies,  the  classical  master- 
pieces of  music,  the  Hebrew  is  nowhere  to  be 
mentioned  in  comparison  with  the  great  Italian, 
German,  and  even  English,  composers.  In 
inventive  arts,  the  arts  that  have  multiplied 
human  productivity  a  thousand  fold,  the  Jew 
figures  very  little. 

Yet,  we  must  not  be  guilty  of  the  imper- 
tinence or  the  pedantry  of  minifying  the  place 
of  the  Hebrew  in  the  great  complex  of  civiliza- 
tion. On  his  brow  we  may  reverently  and 
justly  place  the  crown  of  moral  leadership  for 
mankind.  Even  though  small  among  the 
tribes  of  earth,  he  has  made  contributions  to 
the  world's  spiritual  uplifting  greater  than  the 
mightiest.  He  holds,  and  will  forever  hold, 
unrivaled  and  secure  place  as  the  prophet  and 
proclaimer  of  the  highest  inspirations  and 
hopes  for  humanity.  The  writings  which  were 
born  in  his  inspired  soul  will  remain  to  the  end, 


THE  SPIRITUAL  SENSE  55 

and  superlatively,  matchless  religious  classics 
for  mankind.  The  contributions  to  civiliza- 
tion of  great  moral  personalities  as  made  by 
the  Hebrew  race  stand  unapproachable  by  the 
representatives  of  all  other  peoples.  The 
Hebrews  gave  to  the  world  Moses,  Elijah, 
Isaiah,  John  the  Baptist,  Jesus,  and  Paul. 
If  the  Hebrew  race  were  now  to  become  ex- 
tinct, mankind,  with  the  brightest  forecasts 
which  we  may  make  for  its  future,  will  never 
reach  a  point  of  development  at  which  it  will 
not  be  compelled  to  look  back  to  Hebrew 
history  for  its  finest  moral  ideals,  and  for  its 
matchless  spiritual  teachers. 

The  Hebrew  compels  the  moral  historian 
to  stand  among  the  Judaean  hills,  and  thence 
to  cast  his  measuring  lines  for  the  spiritual 
significance  of  history.  The  Hebrew  stands 
in  the  moral  center  of  the  divine  drama  of 
the  world.  Nevertheless,  we  must  not  dis- 
credit our  own  judgment,  nor  needlessly  im- 
poverish our  own  vision,  by  assuming  that  he 
alone  has  been  the  object  or  the  instrument 
of  God's  providential  dealings  with  the  world. 
All  the  races  and  sons  of  men  are  in  God's 
providential  vision.  In  seeking  any  assessment 
of  the  divine  dealings  with  the  human  race 
we  must  put  ourselves  on  guard  against  any 
attempt    to    confine    the    entire    meaning    of 


56  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

providence  in  some  pocket  of  a  narrow  creed. 
In  reaching,  even  proximately,  an  adequate 
point  for  measuring  the  scope  of  God's  grace, 
we  must,  if  needs  be,  famiharize  ourselves  with 
the  conception  that  God  is,  and  always  has 
been,  working  for  a  world-humanity.  The 
spiritual  sense,  common  to  the  race,  is  the 
universal  ground  of  appeal  both  for  God  and 
his  messengers.  The  message  of  the  preacher 
is  effective  only  as  he  awakens  this  responsive 
sense.  This  same  spiritual  sense,  universal  in 
the  heathen  world,  is  the  one  door  of  entrance 
and  of  hope  for  all  missionary  effort.  The 
Holy  Spirit  himself  waits  with  his  illuminating 
presence  at  this  very  door  for  admission  to 
every  human  life. 

Historically,  we  know  only  too  sadly  how 
crude,  how  beclouded,  how  seemingly  hope- 
less has  been  the  response  of  the  great  masses 
of  mankind  to  God's  higher  thought  and  pur- 
pose. Like  a  luminous  mountain,  with  ever- 
enriching  revelations  as  it  is  ascended,  God's 
redemptive  purpose  has  been  set  up  in  the 
midst  of  men.  And  yet  how  few,  even  of 
saintly  minds,  have  climbed  to  the  most  in- 
spiring heights !  But  God  is  neither  discouraged 
nor  balked  in  his  purposes.  The  infantile 
moral  helplessness  and  ignorance  of  the  race 
is  no  surprise  to  him.     It  is  in  the  presence  of 


THE  SPIRITUAL  SENSE  57 

such  beginnings  that  he  ordains  all  the  prophetic 
processes  which  are  to  ultimate  in  the  final 
splendors  and  triumphs  of  his  kingdom  among 
men.  It  is  needless  to  advocate  any  special 
theory  of  evolution.  The  perfected  theory  of 
evolution  has  not  yet  been  written.  But  we 
must  not  quarrel  with  history.  A  sure  lesson 
of  history  is  that  God  is  dealing  intellectually 
and  morally  with  the  race  by  evolutionary 
processes.  This  is  asserted  by  all  the  records 
of  human  advancement.  All  knowledge  is 
gained  by  the  exercise  of  faculties  which 
initially  are  undeveloped  and  unknowing.  But 
how  slow  has  been  the  march  of  knowledge! 
For  immemorial  ages  the  earth  has  remained 
an  unexplored  storehouse  of  laws  and  materials 
dynamic  for  human  uses.  Such  arts,  sciences, 
philosophies,  and  inventions  as  have  thus  far 
come  into  service  have  been  secured  only  at  the 
price  of  infinite  and  buffeting  toils  of  mind. 
The  fact,  however,  of  most  astounding  signi- 
ficance is  that  the  light  of  knowledge  so  far 
gained  only  serves  to  indicate  infinities  of  fact 
yet  to  be  explored. 

Now,  if  such  is  God's  method  in  dealing  with 
man's  intellectual  and  inventive  attainments, 
as  relating  to  his  material  and  temporal  life  on 
the  earth,  why  should  we  look  for  a  prompter 
process  in  the  attainment  of  that  knowledge 


58  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

and  experience  which  pertain  to  the  higher 
spiritual  life?  It  is  an  obvious  historical  fact 
that  the  progress  of  the  race  in  spiritual  knowl- 
edge and  character  has  at  best  lingered  on  slow, 
difficult,  and  toilsome  pathways.  Even  now, 
in  large  areas,  as  measured  by  human  im- 
pression, the  promise  of  man's  spiritual  trans- 
formation and  final  exaltation  seems  little 
better  than  a  hopeless  dream.  It  would  indeed 
be  such  if  we  had  to  reckon  without  God. 
But  he  from  behind  what  is  to  us  "the  dim 
unknown"  is  "keeping  watch  above  his  own." 
He  is  infallibly  engineering  the  world  to  what 
may  be  the  far-off  but  sure  event  of  his  per- 
fected kingdom.  It  cannot  be  that  the  great 
prophets  and  poet-seers  of  the  ages  are  mis- 
taken in  their  vision.  Browning,  without  illu- 
sion, saw  the  dark  and  forbidding  things  of  life. 
He  had  faced  the  specter  of  doubt.  But  never 
once  was  his  faith  eclipsed,  nor  his  courage 
daunted.  He  felt  sublimely  confident  of  his 
own  future.     He  said: 

If  I  stoop 
Into  a  dark  tremendous  sea  of  cloud, 
It  is  but  for  a  time;  I  press  God*s  lamp 
Close  to  my  breast;  its  splendor,  soon  or  late, 
Will  pierce  the  gloom !     I  shall  emerge  one  day. 

It  was  Browning  who  put  his  own  prophecy 


THE  SPIRITUAL  SENSE  59 

of  man's  perfected  future  into  the  lips  of  a 
medieval  mystic: 

For  these  things  tend  still  upward,  progress  is 

The  law  of  life,  man  is  not  man  as  yet. 

Nor  shall  I  deem  his  object  served,  his  end 

Attained,  his  genuine  strength  put  fairly  forth. 

While  only  here  and  there  a  star  dispels 

The  darkness,  here  and  there  a  towering  mind 

O'erlooks  its  prostrate  fellows;  when  the  host 

Is  out  at  once  to  the  despair  of  night. 

When  all  mankind  alike  is  perfected. 

Equal  in  full-blown  powers — then,  not  till  then, 

I  say,  begins  man's  general  infancy. 

...  So  in  man's  self  arise 

August  anticipations,  symbols,  types 

Of  a  dim  splendor  ever  on  before 

In  that  eternal  circle  life  pursues. 

For  men  begin  to  pass  their  nature's  bound. 

And  find  new  hopes  and  cares  which  fast  supplant 

Their  proper  joys  and  griefs;  they  grow  too  great 

For  narrow  creeds  of  right  and  wrong,  which  fade 

Before  the  unmeasured  thirst  for  good;  while  peace 

Rises  within  them  ever  more  and  more. 

Such  men  are  even  now  upon  the  earth. 

Serene  amid  the  half-formed  creatures  round 

Who  should  be  saved  by  them  and  joined  with  them. 

The  great  laureate  voices  his  faith,  a  most 
optimistic  and  prophetic  faith,  in  man's  per- 
fected future  in  many  a  glowing  verse.  He  had 
the  vision  at  least  of  God's  infinite  patience,  of 
his  unthwartable  purpose  to  bring  man,  even 
though  it  should  require  aeonian  ages,  to  final 
perfection. 


60  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

Dawn  not  Day! 
Is  it  shame,  so  few  should  have  climbed  from  the 
dens  in  the  level  below, 
Men,  with  a  heart  and  a  soul,  no  slaves  of  a 

four-footed  will? 
But  if  twenty  million  of  summers  are  stored  in 
the  sunlight  still. 
We  are  far  from  the  noon  of  man,  there  is  time 
for  the  race  to  grow. 

Red  of  the  dawn! 
Is  it  turning  a  fainter  red?  so  be  it,  but  when  shall 
we  lay 
The   Ghost  of   the   Brute  that  is  walking   and 

haunting  us  yet,  and  be  free? 
In  a  hundred,   a  thousand  winters?     Ah,   what 
will  our  children  be. 
The  men  of  a  hundred  thousand,  a  million  sum- 
mers away? 

Again : 

Where  is  one  that,  born  of  woman,  altogether  can 

escape 
From  the  lower  world  within  him,  moods  of  tiger, 

or  of  ape? 
Man  as  yet  is  being  made,  and  ere  the  crowning 

Age  of  ages. 
Shall  not  seon  after  aeon  pass  and  touch  him  into 

shape? 

All  about  him  shadow  still,  but,  while  the  races 

flower  and  fade. 
Prophet-eyes  may  catch  a  glory  slowly  gaining  on 

the  shade, 
Till  the  peoples  all  are  one,  and  all  their  voices 

blend  in  choric 
Hallelujah  to  the  Maker:  "It  is  finished.     Man  is 

made." 


THE  SPIRITUAL  SENSE  61 

The  question  will  be  raised,  "What  can  be 
the  relation  of  such  a  philosophy  to  the  incar- 
nation?" If  Christ  was  the  eternal  Logos  in- 
carnate, if  the  Christ  of  Syria  was  really  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh,  then  for  his  working  and 
effective  ministry  in  the  world  there  is  no  need 
to  set  historic  limits.  Himself  said,  "Before 
Abraham  was,  I  am."  Christ's  mission  with 
human  destiny  is  eternally  operative.  He 
alone,  as  the  Lamb  slain  from  before  the  foun- 
dations of  the  world,  always  has  been  and 
always  will  be  the  Divine  Redeemer  of  men. 
Christ  has  been  present  in  the  world  with  all 
races  and  in  all  ages  to  meet  the  spiritual  needs 
of  men.  This  doctrine  was  taught  by  Origen, 
Augustine,  and  Luther,  and  by  innumerable 
others.  Canon  James  Maurice  Wilson  has 
stated  it  as  follows:  "Christ's  redeeming  work 
did  not  begin  when  he  was  born  in  Bethlehem: 
it  had  begun  as  the  Word  of  conscience,  the 
Word  Very  nigh'  to  man,  in  all  ages.  That 
which  is  universal  in  man  was  manifested,  con- 
centrated, in  the  historic  revelation  of  Christ. 
In  him  the  universal  subjective  became  the 
unique  objective  revelation.  But  in  all  time  he 
was  the  Light  which  lighteth  every  man."  In  a 
sense  divinely  true,  though  not  nominally  his- 
toric, Christ  has  always  been,  and  always  will  be, 
a  redeeming  and  saving  Presence  in  the  world. 


62  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

The  greatness  of  Jesus  Christ  passes  by  in- 
finite measurements  human  comprehension. 
Saint  Paul  was  sanely  right  when  he  declared 
that  *'by  him  were  all  things  created,  that  are 
in  heaven,  and  that  are  in  earth,  visible  and 
invisible,  whether  they  be  thrones,  or  domin- 
ions, or  principalities,  or  powers:  all  things 
were  created  by  him  and  for  him."  Christ's 
mission  is  both  cosmic  and  aeonian.  He  is 
working  the  worlds  and  the  ages  to  a  divine 
program.  The  exaltation  of  man  is  eternally 
central  to  his  purpose.  He  will  neither  weary 
nor  suffer  defeat.  Eternity  is  his  theater, 
and  the  inexhaustible  resources  of  the  moral 
universe  are  at  his  command.  It  matters  not 
that  sin,  ignorance,  superstition,  and  all  the 
brood  of  moral  ills  which  these  beget,  entrench 
themselves  against  him.  Against  sin  he  will 
oppose  God's  holiness;  against  ignorance,  divine 
enlightenment;  against  superstition,  scientific 
knowledge;  against  all  moral  ills,  the  salvation 
of  God.  Unfalteringly  he  will  widen  his  conquest 
until  all  knees  of  things  in  heaven  and  of  things 
in  earth  shall  bow  to  his  sovereignty,  and  he 
shall  be  universally  acclaimed  as  King  of  kings 
and  Lord  of  lords. 


Ill 

THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 


Spirit,  who  makest  all  things  new, 
Thou  leadest  onward:  we  pursue 

The  heavenly  march  sublime. 
'Neath  thy  renewing  fire  we  glow, 
And  still  from  strength  to  strength  we  go, 

From  height  to  height  we  climb. 

To  thee  we  rise,  in  thee  we  rest; 
We  stay  at  home,  we  go  in  quest, 

Still  thou  art  our  abode. 
The  rapture  swells,  the  wonder  grows. 
As  full  on  us  new  life  still  flows 

From   our  unchanging   God. 

The  whole  of  human  nature  must  be  included  in  its  various 
relations  to  that  Divine  Being  who  is  not  mere  Intelligence, 
mere  Power,  mere  Beneficence,  but  the  Highest  Life  of  all, 
the  only  real  and  complete  Personality  in  the  universe.  He 
possesses  a  personal  life  in  its  unimaginable  perfection  and 
has  intrusted  his  high  gift  in  a  measure  to  some  of  his  crea- 
tures, that  they  may  continually  press  forward  toward  its 
fuller  realization.  The  Divine  Spirit  is  at  the  same  time 
God  over  all  human  spirits,  around  them  and  within  them — 
each  word  to  be  maintained  with  equal  weight  and  strenu- 
ousness.  To  apprehend,  maintain,  enjoy,  and  extend  that 
many-sided  relation  constitutes  the  true  life  of  the  finite 
spirit  through  all  its  history. — Dr.    W.   T.  Davison. 

We  are  discovering  now  that  God  is  not  only  the  source 
and  object  of  the  religious  feelings,  but  that  he  also  is  a 
musician,  an  artist,  a  mathematician,  the  Creator  and  giver 
of  all  beauty,  and  that  in  seeking  perfection  in  these  direc- 
tions we  are  seeking  him.  It  is  a  false  conscience  which 
would  shut  up  our  religious  interests  to  the  narrow  ground 
of  a  few  elementary  ideas.  This  is  to  put  them  in  charge  of 
a  kitchen  garden  when  their  true  role  is  to  govern  a  universe. 
— J.  Brierley. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  HOLY  SPIRIT 

"Christianity  is  a  religion  of  the  spirit; 
that  is  to  say,  it  finds  its  new  world  in  a  super- 
sensible, invisible  kingdom.  It  believes  in  a 
purely  spiritual  God  as  the  Source  and  Sus- 
tainer  of  all  reality,  so  that  the  renewal  of  life 
which  it  demands  is  preeminently  spiritual  in 
kind.  Nature,  as  the  creation  of  God,  revealing 
his  splendor  through  all  her  works  and  ways, 
and  praising  him  with  a  thousand  tongues,  has 
to  subserve  the  aims  of  spirit." 

This  statement,  by  one  who  is  perhaps  the 
world's  greatest  living  philosopher,  must  be 
accepted,  so  far  as  it  goes,  as  truly  representing 
the  Christian  view.  The  Holy  Spirit,  in  Chris- 
tian thought,  is  God,  God  everywhere  working 
in  his  world.  The  ideal  Christian  life  is  the 
largest,  divinest,  and  most  perfect  life  possible 
to  man.  But  of  this  life  the  Holy  Spirit  is 
the  Begetter,  the  Sustainer,  the  Inspiration 
and  the  Guide.  The  Christian  bears  the  name 
of  Christ;  he  is  Christ's  disciple,  a  citizen  of 
Christ's    kingdom.     He    is    ruled    by    Christ's 

65 


66  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

spirit.  His  chief  aim  is  to  be  Christlike  and  to 
do  Christ's  will.  The  mission  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  of  the  Holy  Spirit  are  one.  The  mission 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  is,  in  all  divine  resourceful- 
ness, to  serve  the  kingdom  of  Christ.  In 
general  uses  the  names  of  Christ  and  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  are  interchangeable  terms.  Dis- 
missing all  technic  of  theological  definition,  the 
Holy  Spirit  is  the  ever-living,  immanent,  and 
omniscient  Christ,  the  Christ  who  controls  all 
moral  forces  in  the  interests  of  his  kingdom. 

Always,  in  treating  of  divine  character,  we 
need  to  guard  ourselves  against  narrow  con- 
ceptions. Common  Christian  thought  ascribes 
to  the  Spirit  the  ofiices  of  Convincer  of  sin, 
Pardoner  of  the  penitent.  Regenerator  and 
Sanctifier  of  the  believer,  Bestower  of  grace, 
Inspirer,  Sustainer,  and  Comforter  of  the 
Christian  in  burden-bearing  service  and  in  all 
of  life's  turbulent  experiences,  and,  at  the  last, 
a  Divine  Presence  dissipating  for  him  the 
shadows  of  death  with  the  radiance  of  immor- 
tal hope.  This  diagram,  if  it  were  all,  would 
be  worthy  of  God.  It  is  a  diagram  which 
only  a  Supreme  Divinity  could  fill.  But  all 
this,  with  its  unmeasured  import,  represents 
but  a  fraction,  however  great,  of  the  Spirit's 
mission  to  the  world's  life. 

The  mission  of  the  Holy  Spirit  relates  itself 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  67 

creatively  and  vitally  to  man's  entire  being. 
The  thought  of  the  historic  Church,  to  an 
overshadowing  degree,  has  been  occupied  with 
the  relations  of  the  individual  soul  to  God. 
The  Church  has  laid  not  too  much,  but  too 
exclusive,  emphasis  upon  the  value  of  salvation 
for  the  individual.  Salvation  for  the  individual 
from  the  "wrath  to  come"  has  been  hitherto 
largely  central  in  the  teaching  and  efforts  of 
the  Church.  This  particular  emphasis  should 
never  be  withheld.  But  it  has  never  been  a 
chief  teaching  of  New  Testament  Christianity 
that  its  exclusive  mission  is  to  save  the  indi- 
vidual soul. 

Man  is  made  preeminently  for  two  relation- 
ships: the  one  with  God,  his  Maker;  the  other 
with  man,  his  fellow.  The  Holy  Spirit  has  a 
vital  relation  to  every  part  which  man  sustains 
in  these  imperative  connections.  Man  is  God's 
counterpart,  endowed  with  the  potentialities  of 
intellect,  of  insight,  of  affection,  of  will,  of  con- 
science. He  is  made  a  worshipful  being,  po- 
tentially capable  of  unlimited  moral  and  spirit- 
ual apprehension.  Upon  him  there  is  laid  ab- 
solute divine  demand  for  response  from  his 
every  faculty.  His  relations  are  both  individual 
and  social.  His  highest  life  must  realize  itself 
in  both  self -development  and  service.  The 
Holy  Spirit  sweeps  the  entire  scale  of  the  human 


68  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

soul.  Man  is  like  a  musical  instrument,  with 
infinite  possibilities  of  expression;  but  perfection 
of  expression  is  realized  only  when  in  all  his 
faculties  he  responds  to  the  Master's  touch. 
In  the  measure  only  of  this  response  can  a  man 
come  perfectly  into  the  experience  of  the 
Christian  life. 

What  shall  we  say  about  the  intellect  as 
related  to  the  Christian  life.^  God  is  the  great 
Thinker.  Among  the  marvels  of  creation  is 
the  intellectual  endowment  of  man.  He  has 
capacity  for  thinking  his  way  into  the  measure- 
ments of  God's  own  thought.  The  very  en- 
dowment of  the  intellectual  faculty  is  full 
proof  that  God  himself  is  both  honored  and 
served  by  the  normal  uses  of  the  human  mind. 
In  stressing  man's  duty  to  love  God  with  all 
his  heart  it  seems  sometimes  to  be  overlooked 
that  God  requires  absolute  consecration  of 
"Mind  and  Soul,"  as  well  as  of  heart.  Many 
most  vital  questions  can  secure  final  decision 
only  in  the  court  of  intellect.  Intellect  is  the 
inquisitor  and  discoverer  in  fields  of  scientific 
and  philosophical  truth.  Man  himself,  how- 
ever infinite  in  faculty,  however  baffling  the 
unexplored  mysteries  which  still  may  remain 
within  him,  comes  to  his  best  self-understand- 
ing only  in  the  light  of  those  microscopic  and 
mental  processes  by  which  he  ever  seeks  self- 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  69 

explanation.  Let  it  be  admitted  that  intellect 
does  not  yield  all  the  criteria  of  truth,  and  that 
there  are  many  mysteries  which  philosophy  fails 
to  explain;  yet,  eliminate  the  intellectual 
faculties,  and  human  life,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
would  be  reduced  to  a  meaningless  medley. 

Man,  as  artist  or  critic,  is  made  to  reflect  the 
divine  mind.  It  is  a  teaching  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  that  God  inspires  the  artificer  for 
cunning  workmanship.  Is  it  unreasonable  to 
assume  that  the  Divine  Spirit  unveils  the 
beauties  of  nature  to  the  vision  of  the  artist, 
that  he  touches  the  soul  of  the  composer  to 
finest  harmonies,  or  that  he  inspires  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  poet  for  creative  work.^  Who  shall 
tell  us  that  these  values  are  born  without  a 
divine  parentage!  The  artist  truly  responds 
to  the  Spirit's  call  when  he  consecrates  his 
talent  to  noble  uses. 

God  made  the  mind  for  critical  investigation. 
In  the  exercise  of  this  function  it  has  gathered 
and  stored  for  human  uses,  culture,  and  power, 
all  the  world's  wealth  of  knowledge,  science, 
art,  history,  philosophy.  God  has  isolated  no 
department  of  his  own  work  from  the  search 
of  man  the  thinker  and  critic.  It  would  seem 
by  some  to  be  judged  a  presumption  and  sin 
that  man  should  assume  critically  to  investigate 
claims  long  associated  with  religious  thought — 


70  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

claims  which  may  be  held  as  of  sacred  purport. 
Not  a  few  seem  to  think  that  the  Hebrew  and 
Christian  Scriptures  are  of  a  character  so 
sacred  as  to  make  it  a  presumption  and  sin  that 
any  attempt  should  be  made  to  subject  them 
to  critical  study.  To  subject  their  origins, 
their  environments,  their  historical,  literary, 
and  grammatical  structures  to  critical  investi- 
gation would  constitute  in  itself  a  sacrilege. 

God  has  not  seemed  to  regard  any  other  works 
of  his  creation  in  this  way.  He  has  peopled  the 
far  spaces  with  innumerable  worlds.  But,  so 
far  as  yet  discovered,  a  very  chief  service  of 
these  worlds  is  that  they  have  served  to  mag- 
nify, to  glorify,  the  mind  of  man.  However 
far  off  and  unapproachably  sacred  to  the  thought 
of  some  other  generations  these  worlds  may 
have  seemed,  the  modern  man  has  demonstrated 
a  capacity  for  annihilating  their  distances, 
measuring  their  orbs,  analyzing  their  substances ; 
and  in  doing  this  he  has  given  indubitable 
proof  of  his  kingship  in  the  universe.  He  has 
given  demonstration  that  a  single  human  mind 
capable  of  building  its  track  of  thought  through 
the  void  may  justly  be  accounted  as  of  greater 
worth  in  the  sight  of  God  than  all  the  dumb 
worlds  in  space.  God  has  never  chided  man 
for  the  attempt  critically  to  study  the  structure 
of  the  material  universe. 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  71 

An  inspired  apostle  has  designated  the  human 
body  as  the  very  "temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 
It  ought  not  to  require  much  imagination  to  feel 
the  sacredness  of  the  human  body.  It  is  a 
vital  mechanism  worthy  of  a  divine  creation. 
It  surely  is  something  not  to  be  profaned.  But 
profanation  of  the  body  is  its  physical  abuse, 
the  failure  to  observe  the  sacred  laws  of  health, 
its  prostitution  to  lust,  to  drunkenness,  to 
gluttony.  The  body,  however  divine  its  func- 
tion as  the  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  never 
profaned  by  a  reverent  study  of  its  mechanism. 
The  scientific  knowledge  of  the  human  body 
has  discovered  and  illuminated  the  vital  con- 
ditions of  health,  has  prepared  the  foundations 
for  all  the  beneficent  ministries  of  enlightened 
medicine  and  surgery.  The  critical  mastery  of 
its  physiology  has  yielded  immeasurable  values 
to  human  life. 

Not  unakin  to  the  protest  which  has  been 
raised  against  a  critical  study  of  things  regarded 
as  sacred  in  nature  is  the  religious  protest 
entered  against  a  critical  study  of  the  Sacred 
Scriptures.  The  true  function  of  criticism  is 
to  ascertain  intrinsic  truth,  truth  fundamental 
and  vital  in  the  situation.  It  is  difficult  to  see 
how  such  a  process  can  work  harm  in  any  realm. 
In  so  far  as  criticism  is  corrective,  revisionary, 
it  may  necessitate  the  abandonment  of  old,  and 


72  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

the  acceptance  of  new,  views.  This  doubtless, 
in  some  cases,  will  result  in  mental  disturbance 
and  dislodgment  to  those  who  have  been 
grounded  in  traditional  interpretations.  Such 
is  a  price  always  to  be  paid  for  the  world's  en- 
larging knowledge.  Mental  dislodgments,  how- 
ever, are  not  the  worst  things  to  happen  in  the 
world  of  thought.  Christ  himself  was  a  great 
disturber  of  the  traditions  of  his  time.  Mental 
dislodgment  was  a  common  symptom  manifest 
under  the  influence  of  his  teaching.  He  did 
not  hesitate  to  take  entire  responsibility  for  the 
consequences. 

When  a  morbid  condition  inheres  in  the 
physical  system,  it  is  eminently  desirable  that 
its  causes  should  be  removed,  however  drastic 
the  process  required.  In  the  matter  of  intel- 
lectual health  it  may  happen  that  mental 
morbidity  is  the  result  of  a  mind  overloaded 
with  devitalized,  unassimilable  traditionalism. 
This  condition  may,  in  instances,  be  so  far 
advanced  as  to  be  incurable,  hopeless.  In  any 
event,  it  cannot  be  helped  by  any  process  of 
mental  quackery.  Some,  unfortunately,  will 
suffer  mentally  from  a  failure  ever  to  come  in 
contact  with  helpfully  corrective  sources.  In 
the  meantime  it  would  be  helpful  if  all  men 
could  be  reminded  that  the  history,  the  liter- 
ature, and  the  grammar  of  all  the  books  of  the 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  73 

Bible,  when  most  perfectly  ascertained,  are  not 
synonymous  with,  and  are  never  to  be  substi- 
tuted for,  a  saving  personal  faith  in  Jesus  Christ. 
Personal  religion  is  one  thing;  biblical  criticism 
quite  another. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  entire  Church, 
especially  its  Protestant  section,  is  awaking 
to  the  high  values  accruing  to  Christian  thought 
from  a  reverent  and  competent  criticism  of  the 
Bible.  This  process  has  already  saved  the 
Bible  to  much  of  the  world's  best  intellect. 
The  time  is  not  far  away  when  the  secured 
results  of  a  reverent  criticism  will  be  happily 
domesticated  in  the  common  Christian  thought, 
and  when  all  will  rejoice  in  a  vast  securement, 
correction,  and  enrichment  of  Scripture  knowl- 
edge such  as  only  a  reverent  and  enlightened 
criticism  can  yield.  In  the  meantime  the  pro- 
test, and  sometimes  the  vehement  denuncia- 
tion, indulged  by  good  people  against  the  ap- 
plication of  critical  study  to  the  Bible,  doubt- 
less arises  from  lack  of  appreciation  of  the 
normal  and  legitimate  critical  function  with 
which  God  himself  has  endowed  the  human 
mind.  There  still  lurks  widely  in  popular 
thought  an  old-time  and  essentially  disreputable 
suspicion  that  in  some  way  intellectual  culture 
is  a  foe  to  spirituality.  Erasmus,  a  foremost 
scholar  of  his  day,  indulged  in  the  bitter  gibe 


74  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

that  "Our  theologians  call  it  a  sign  of  hohness 
to  be  unable  to  read."  The  Nonconformist 
minister  of  whom  Brierley  tells  us,  who  had 
never  allowed  himself  to  study  German  because 
"German  religious  thought  was  so  unsettling," 
stands,  it  is  to  be  feared,  as  a  type  of  a  mental 
survival  which  unfortunately  is  far  from  extinct 
in  our  day.  It  seems  an  ironical  anomaly  of 
the  times  that,  while  in  all  the  professions  and 
standard  industries  there  is  a  constant  looking 
for  new  knowledge  and  new  appliances  of  in- 
vention, in  a  considerable  section  of  theological 
thought  ignorance  is  still  at  a  premium.  Of 
course  this  state  of  thought  would  naturally 
linger  with  that  type  of  mind  which  contents 
itself  with  the  belief  that  all  spiritual  truth 
has  been  delivered  once  for  all.  The  assump- 
tion of  a  final,  complete,  and  stereotyped 
revelation,  however  irrational  in  itself,  would 
suggest  the  possibilities  of  mental  restfulness, 
and  might  prove  itself  well  adapted  to  the 
mentally  indolent.  The  assumption  is  against 
history,  against  experience.  It  is  false.  The 
Christian  mind,  under  the  inspiration  and 
illumination  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  is  an  ordained 
path-finder  into  ever  new  fields  of  experience 
and  truth.  The  Holy  Spirit  quickens  mental 
insight  just  as  certainly  as  he  works  in  any 
other  faculty  of  the  human  soul. 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  75 

But  man  is  far  more  and  other  than  a  being 
simply  of  heart,  of  conscience,  of  will,  or  of 
intellect.  He  is  preeminently  a  social  being. 
He  stands  related  to  a  world  of  his  fellows.  The 
real  significance  of  his  life  grows  out  of  his  social 
relations.  Society  is  the  school  in  which  his 
individuality  comes  to  expression,  in  which  his 
powers  find  development,  the  school  which 
brings  to  him  self-discipline  and  training  for 
service.  Were  it  conceivable  that  by  any  means 
a  child  could  grow  from  infancy  to  full  physical 
stature  without  social  environment,  such  a 
person  could  represent  only  the  most  rudi- 
mentary development  of  character.  It  is  the 
reaction  of  other  lives  upon  the  child,  in  the 
home,  in  school,  in  society,  through  which 
alone  his  powers  come  to  the  full.  And  here 
we  have  presented  to  us  the  great  world-school 
of  man's  religious  obligation,  of  his  spiritual 
opportunity.  As  society  puts  its  building  and 
shaping  hand  upon  the  individual,  so  in  turn 
the  individual  puts  his  own  creative  touch  upon 
the  lives  that  are  about  him. 

The  dynamic  logic  of  this  situation  has 
forced  the  Church  to  enlarge  its  conception  of 
the  function  of  Christianity  in  the  earth.  The 
individualistic  conception  of  salvation  for  the 
life  to  come  can  no  longer  monopolize  Christian 
thought.     Christ's  own  idea,  that  upon  which 


76  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

he  laid  so  continuous  emphasis  in  the  announce- 
ments of  his  kingdom,  namely,  that  of  the  moral 
renewal  and  reconstruction  of  human  society 
in  this  present  world,  is  now,  though  late, 
claiming  its  rightful  place  in  Christian  convic- 
tions. Viewed  in  historic  retrospect,  it  is 
astonishing  how  modern  is  this  apprehension 
in  Christian  thought.  Through  modern  eyes 
alone  have  we  come  to  see  that  the  whole  large- 
ness of  this  conception  was  clearly  anticipated 
in  the  thought  of  Jesus.  Most  of  the  Christian 
centuries  have  passed  with  all  too  little  practical 
embodiment  of  God's  world-plan  in  the  working 
diagram  of  the  Church.  The  vision  of  Chris- 
tianity to-day,  as  never  before,  is  one  of  world- 
outlook.  The  heart  of  Christianity  throbs 
with  universal  sympathy.  This  temper  is 
Christian,  but  as  a  living  force  in  civilization 
it  is  newborn. 

By  the  dominant  statecrafts  and  theologies 
of  the  past  this  temper  was  little  felt.  To 
most  classic  ancient  thought  the  outsider  was 
regarded  as  an  enemy  whom  it  was  right  to 
destroy.  The  spirit  of  tribal  animosities  has  had 
long  survival  in  the  historic  creeds.  For  the 
larger  part  of  the  Christian  centuries  a  majority 
of  the  Church  has  believed  that  even  God  has 
reprobated  vast  numbers  of  the  human  race. 
Catholics  and  Protestants  have  glared  at  each 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  77 

other  in  the  spirit  of  mutual  hate.  Even  the 
Protestant  denominations,  dwelling  in  the  same 
communities,  have  been  so  dogmatic  and  nar- 
row as  each  to  concede  httle  to  the  Christian 
status  of  the  other. 

As  opposed  to  all  this,  a  great  change  has 
come  in  these  very  modern  days.  A  vital  and 
balmy  springtime  is  advancing  upon  the  world 
of  Christian  thought.  The  full,  strong  note 
of  a  growing  harmony  is  borne  upon  the  spiritual 
atmospheres  of  the  times.  Christian  thought, 
with  clear  vision  and  unmistakable  emphasis, 
is  coming  to  view  the  whole  human  race  as  the 
field  of  God's  redemptive  work.  Humanity  is 
a  solidarity,  one  brotherhood.  The  race  as  a 
whole  can  reach  its  highest  levels  only  as  all  its 
peoples  and  tribes  are  lifted  to  the  enlighten- 
ments and  fellowships  of  brotherhood  in  Jesus 
Christ.  It  is  this  vision  that  furnishes  inspira- 
tion for  all  the  phenomenal  and  prophetic  move- 
ments of  modern  missions.  This  vision  is  rap- 
idly creating  in  all  the  Church  a  new  sense  of 
the  value  of  Christian  unity  and  of  cooperation 
in  the  work  of  Christ's  universal  Kingdom.  The 
broadest-minded  Christians  of  the  day  are  en- 
thusiastic volunteers  in  the  army  of  the  new 
unities.  To  the  keenest  spiritual  sense  of  the 
times  a  narrow,  and  divisive  sectarianism  is  be- 
coming a  thing  of  increasing  abhorrence. 


IfS  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

But  God's  voice,  speaking  through  the  spir- 
itual sense,  does  not  summon  the  thought  of 
men  simply  to  the  larger  spiritual  unities,  nor 
to  the  far  fields  of  evangelical  opportunity.  He 
makes  upon  every  man  personally,  and  for  the 
entire  scope  of  his  activities  and  influence,  an 
uncompromising  demand  for  ethical  living. 
The  inner  motive  of  business  must  be  that  of 
honest  dealing.  The  man  of  superior  privilege 
must  absolutely  take  no  ill-advantage  of  his 
less  favored  neighbor.  The  rich  must  be  a  real 
brother  of  the  poor.  In  the  handhng  of  his 
treasure  he  must  be  sensitively  responsive  to 
his  obligation  as  a  steward  of  Christ.  Each 
man,  in  his  sphere,  must  feel  the  responsibility 
of  service.  To  each,  in  the  social  organism, 
there  is  alotted  some  special  sphere  of  duty 
which  he  alone  can  best  fill.  Service  is  the 
binding  law  of  the  Christian  life.  To  the 
obedient  it  furnishes  a  supreme  reward  both  of 
usefulness  and  of  joy.  It  was  to  Christ  both 
meat  and  drink  to  do  the  will  of  his  Father  in 
heaven. 

When  the  individual,  in  his  personal  life,  in 
the  home,  in  society,  in  civic  relations,  in  all 
relations,  lives  ethically  after  the  ideal  Christian 
standard,  there  will  be  a  new  standardization 
for  the  whole  life  of  the  community.  This 
would  mean  both  in  business  and  in  the  State, 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  79 

no  more  soulless  corporations,  corporations 
exercising  an  unscrupulous  use  of  power  for 
selfish  and  unjust  ends.  It  would  mean  the 
ethical  administration  of  public  office,  the 
absence  of  graft  from  politics.  It  would  mean 
the  merciless  uprooting  and  exorcism  from 
society  of  evil  traffics,  of  traffic  in  intemper- 
ance, of  organized  ministries  to  lust,  of  every- 
thing that  works  ill  to  the  social  organism.  It 
would  mean  opportunity  for  childhood,  justice 
to  the  poor,  the  practical  installment  every- 
where of  just  standards  of  human  worth.  This 
field  is  one  of  infinite  suggestiveness.  It  is  as 
broad  in  its  claims  as  man's  capacity  for 
thought  and  service.  It  is  in  all  this  unlimited 
field,  in  its  every  last  and  minutest  section,  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  makes  demand  upon  human 
life.  When  we  speak,  then,  of  Christian  ex- 
perience, it  is  manifestly  something,  both  in 
its  ideal  and  normal  scope,  far  broader  than 
has  as  yet  been  very  generally  realized  either 
in  the  conception  or  practice  of  the  ordinary 
religious  life.  To  be  a  Christian,  in  Christ's 
sense,  is  the  loftiest  realization  possible  to 
man. 

The  age  is  indebted  to  Rudolf  Eucken  for 
much  clear  and  exceptionally  powerful  state- 
ment of  spiritual  truth.  In  his  volume  Can  We 
Still  Be  Christians.^  he  seems  to  take  somewhat 


80  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

dubious  views  of  the  present  world-states  of 
Christianity.  Taking  into  full  view  the  great 
advances  of  modern  civilization,  in  learning,  in 
wealth,  in  the  bewildering  multiplication  of 
inventive  appliances  ministering  to  the  luxury 
of  life,  he  still  vividly  shows  that  unless  m,ankind 
shall  come  under  the  governance  of  some  higher 
spiritual  principle,  such  as  that  idealized  in 
Christianity,  then,  notwithstanding  all  of  its  in- 
tellectual and  material  wealth,  the  human  race 
awaits  only  the  doom  of  moral  bankruptcy 
and  hopelessness. 

The  Christian  faith  owes  much  to  Eucken 
for  his  clear  showing  of  the  world's  helplessness 
without  some  supreme  spiritual  guidance  such 
as  that  which  he  clearly  concedes  is  found  more 
perfectly  represented  in  Christianity  than  in 
all  other  sources.  Yet  from  a  careful  effort 
to  understand  him,  I  can  but  be  impressed  that 
Eucken  himself  fails  in  apprehension  of  an 
adequate  measurement  of  the  genius,  adapta- 
bility, and  sufficiency  of  Christianity  for  fully 
meeting  the  moral  and  spiritual  needs  of 
humanity.  The  spirit  of  Christianity  has  been 
too  narrowly  measured.  When  seen  in  its 
all-inspiring  perfection  it  cannot  fail  to  demon- 
strate itself  as  the  supreme  Light,  Hope,  and 
Salvation  of  the  race.  Christianity  will  succeed. 
It  can  have  no  final  rival.     If,  apparently,  it 


THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  81 

has  in  any  sense  proven  a  failure,  such  apparent 
failure  is  best  accounted  for  on  Lessing's 
basis  that  Christianity  as  a  system  of  world- 
moral  government  has  never  yet  been  fairly 
tried. 

On  an  unlimited  scale  does  the  Holy  Spirit 
deal  with  the  interests  of  human  life.  On  such 
a  scale  only  can  the  significance  of  the  ideal 
Christian  experience  itself  be  measured.  The 
high  values  of  such  experience  touch  infinite 
areas. 


IV 

CONVERSION 


If  any  man  be  in  Christ,  he  is  a  new  creature:  old  things 
are  passed  away;  behold,  all  things  are  become  new. — 
3  Corinthians  5.  17. 

The  students  most  hostile  to  the  claim  of  orthodox  Chris- 
tianity willingly  concede  the  importance  of  the  fact  of  con- 
version in  the  life  of  the  early  Church.  The  transitions  in 
personal  life  are  so  numerous  and  so  well  marked  that  they 
cannot  be  overlooked.  The  critic  is  forced  to  concede  the 
fact  of  these  spiritual  phenomena  and  their  moral  genuine- 
ness. He  may  think  the  early  believers  deluded,  but  he  can 
find  no  explanation  which  will  account  for  the  spread  of 
Christianity  and  for  the  endurance  with  which  it  lasted 
through  the  fires  of  persecution  other  than  the  transforma- 
tion wrought  in  the  inner  life  of  the  believ'ers  in  Chris- 
tianity. The  critic  will  not  deny  that  the  early  believers 
in  Christianity  were  from  the  ranks  of  ordinary  people  like 
ourselves,  and  that  through  the  influence  of  their  belief  they 
became  transformed  into  marvels  of  moral  persistence  and 
endurance. — Bishop  Francis  J.  McConnell. 

It  is  a  fact  of  experience  that  whenever  we  submit  utterly, 
afl'ectionately,  irreversibly  to  the  best  we  know,  at  that  in- 
stant there  flashes  through  us  with  quick,  splendid  interior 
unexpected  illumination,  a  Power  not  ourselves.  It  is  a  fixed 
natural  law  that  when  the  soul  yields  utterly  to  God,  he 
streams  into  the  spirit,  giving  a  new  sense  of  his  presence 
and  imparting  a  strength  unknown  before. — Joseph  Cook. 

As  we  proceed  farther  in  our  inquiry  we  shall  see  that 
what  is  attained  is  often  an  altogether  new  level  of  spiritual 
vitality,  a  relatively  heroic  level,  in  which  impossible  things 
have  become  possible,  and  new  energies  and  endurances  are 
shown.  The  personality  is  changed,  the  man  is  born  anew. 
— William  James. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CONVERSION 

The  term  "conversion,"  in  the  Christian 
sense,  has  been  declared  to  represent  the 
greatest  moral  event  in  human  experience.  It 
means  the  turning  of  the  soul's  vision  toward 
the  face  of  God.  It  is  an  experience  which  can 
come  only  from  the  surrender  of  will  and  heart 
to  the  Divine  Spirit.  Its  processes,  like  the 
dawn,  may  come  without  observation;  but 
they  really  mean  for  the  individual  transforma- 
tion of  the  spirit,  the  birth  of  a  new  moral 
springtime  in  the  soul,  the  dating  of  a  new 
spiritual  life.  Conversion  often  announces  it- 
self m  an  inrush  of  divine  joy,  an  illuminating 
ecstasy,  an  inexpressible  sense  of  spiritual  eman- 
cipation. It  is  something  distinct  from  all 
previous  experiences,  as  though  the  soul  had 
come  newly  into  a  transfiguring  and  rapturous 
life.  If  conversion  really  means  a  new-found 
harmony  of  the  soul  with  God,  a  harmony 
wrought  by  the  inworking  Spirit,  bringing 
forgiveness,  illumination,  a  new  joy,  unwonted 
spiritual    strength    to    the     life,    then    indeed 

85 


86  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

conversion  must  rank  as  a  superlative  event  in 
the  moral  history  of  any  man.  It  means  the 
merger  of  a  human  soul  with  the  life  of  God. 

A  wide  historic  view  must  teach  us  that  the 
phenomena  of  conversion  have  not  always 
been  confined  to  historic  Christendom.  And 
if  the  view,  as  previously  expressed,  of  the 
omnipresent  mission  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as 
enlightening  every  man  that  cometh  into  the 
world,  is  true,  then,  under  the  ministry  of  the 
same  Holy  Spirit,  moral  transformations,  or 
conversions,  may  occur  among  all  races  and 
under  all  religious  systems. 

Manifestly,  experiences  so  wrought  are  bereft 
of  vital  advantages  which  attend  conversions 
in  an  atmosphere  of  Christian  instruction  and 
example,  but  that  outside  the  Christian  com- 
munity there  should  be  found  no  spiritually 
transformed  characters  would  be  a  gratuitous 
and  sinister  assumption.  No  less  a  conspicuous 
and  sound  theologian  than  Dr.  William  Newton 
Clarke  teaches  that:  "To  Christian  philosophy, 
every  upward  movement  of  the  human  mind 
suggests  that  Christ,  in  his  universal  relation 
to  humanity,  may  be  able  to  pour  his  new  life 
into  open  hearts,  even  where  there  is  complete 
ignorance  concerning  the  fact  of  his  history 
and  work." 

The    present    discussion,    however,    will    be 


CONVERSION  87 

confined  to  illustrations  found  within  the  limits 
of  historical  Christianity.  The  narratives  of 
the  Old  Testament  are  richly  suggestive  in 
phenomenal  incidents  as  relating  to  conversion. 
When  we  enter  the  New  Testament  we  find 
great  stress  laid  upon  both  the  necessity  and  the 
actual  experience  of  conversion  as  initial  to  the 
Christian  life.  It  radically  connects  trans- 
formation of  both  character  and  conduct  with 
conversion.  This  change  is  set  forth  under 
such  figures  as:  "a  translation  out  of  darkness 
into  marvelous  light";  "being  born  again,  born 
from  above";  "redemption  from  all  iniquity"; 
"passing  out  of  death  into  life";  "turning  from 
the  power  of  Satan  unto  God";  "a  new  crea- 
tion"; "putting  off  an  old,  and  putting  on  a 
new  man";  "becoming  children  of  God"; 
"having  Christ  dwelling  in  the  heart  by  faith"; 
"dying  and  rising  again." 

Such  are  a  few  of  the  vivid  figures  of  the  New 
Testament  picturing  conversion  and  its  fruits. 
Their  import  is  unmistakable.  There  can  be 
no  weakening  of  their  meaning.  Their  color 
is  both  vivid  and  enduring. 

Our  present  intellectual  mood  is  one  fruitful 
of  religious  psychology.  The  psychic  phenom- 
ena of  the  religious  life  are  being  profoundly 
searched,  defined,  and  classified.  This  process 
should  prove  no  menace  to  faith.     Our  confi- 


88  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

dence  in  a  divine  relation  to  the  soul's  conver- 
sion need  not  in  the  least  be  jarred.  The 
processes  of  conversion,  however  divinely  ef- 
fectuated, doubtless  conform  to  the  constitu- 
tional laws  of  the  soul — laws  which  God  himself 
originally  ordained.  All  that  psychology  can 
do  is,  from  its  acquired  knowledge  of  mental 
laws,  to  trace  processes  in  conversion.  But 
this  is  by  no  means  to  assign  or  to  define  the 
Cause,  or  causes,  of  conversion  itself.  Psy- 
chology is  only  one  department  of  philosophy. 
All  that  all  philosophy  can  do  at  its  best  is  to 
give  orderly  classification  to  processes  that  may 
be  apparent  in  whatever  field  of  nature.  Phil- 
osophy when  it  enters  upon  the  task  of  defining 
or  of  assigning  law  to  the  action  of  the  ultimate 
Cause  is  as  impotent  as  a  child.  No  philo- 
sophic vision  is  keen  enough  to  trace  the  visible 
path  along  which  God  moves  in  his  creations 
of  life  and  of  soul.  What  is  true  in  the  higher 
realm  of  spirit  is  just  as  true  for  workers  in  all 
departments  of  physical  science.  All  that 
science  can  do  is  to  discover,  and  to  trace  if  it 
may,  orderly  processes  in  nature.  That  in- 
visible and  omnipotent  Cause  which  ordains 
these  processes  is  one  which  forever  transcends 
the  vision  of  science.  It  would  seem  that  the 
scientist,  in  whatever  field,  ought  to  be  among 
the  most  reverent  of  men.     His  pursuits  are 


CONVERSION  89 

always  on  the  borderland  of  the  Infinite  Mys- 
tery. 

It  would  doubtless  be  good  for  a  working  Chris- 
tianity if  all  its  teachers  and  preachers  were 
versed  in  psychology.  This  would  render  im- 
possible many  stupid  blunders  now  committed, 
and  it  would  redeem  the  life  of  the  Church  from 
many  scandals  of  intellectual  absurdity.  But 
it  would  still  remain  that  beyond  the  border- 
land of  all  psychological  exploration  the  Chris- 
tian faith  sees  infinite  room  for  the  divine 
working.  However  familiar  one  may  become, 
then,  with  what  William  James  has  pronounced 
the  "peripheral  and  central"  regions  of  mind, 
the  ideas  and  feelings  lying  near  the  periphery 
being  frozen  and  inoperative,  while  those  at  the 
center  are  hot  and  alive;  and  of  how  at  con- 
version the  peripheral  ideas  and  feelings  change 
places  with  the  central,  thus  silencing  old  ideas 
and  feelings,  and  at  the  heated  center  bringing 
to  life  and  expression  ideas  and  feelings  hitherto 
voiceless — whatever  one  may  think  or  believe 
about  all  this,  he  is  no  nearer  accounting  for  di- 
vine causes  in  conversion  than  at  the  beginning. 
Indeed,  William  James  himself  suggests  that 
these  very  conditions  which  he  describes  may 
be  the  channels  which  God  himself  has  ordained 
as  his  approaches  to  the  soul. 

Philosophy  is  quite  powerless  to  yield  to  us 


90  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

highest  satisfactions  in  our  attempts  to  explore 
spiritual  experiences  and  their  causes.  Life  is 
more  than  philosophy.  For  the  Christian  life 
we  shall  find  no  so  reliable  rule  as  that  prag- 
matic rule  announced  by  our  Lord,  "By  their 
fruits  ye  shall  know  them."  This  utterance 
of  Christ  is  valid  for  the  highest  ranges  of  ex- 
perience. As  tested  by  this  criterion,  Christian 
conversion  has  proven  itself  as  of  the  highest 
significance  and  value  in  human  history.  The 
very  universal  range  of  its  phenomena  carries 
its  reality  beyond  all  rational  skepticism.  The 
reality  of  Christian  conversion  has  been  indubi- 
tably attested  through  the  centuries  by  un- 
numbered millions  of  witnesses,  multitudes  of 
whom  represent  the  most  competent  minds  of 
the  race.  The  expression  of  this  experience 
has  voiced  itself  through  all  ranges  of  human 
ability,  from  the  highest  genius  down  to  men  of 
the  most  ordinary  mentality.  But,  as  we  would 
judge  of  the  quality  and  possibilities  of  music 
from  the  productions  of  highest  musical  genius, 
so  in  summoning  witnesses  to  demonstrate  the 
practical  values  of  Christian  conversion  we  may 
very  properly  call  upon  those  not  only  intel- 
lectually most  competent  but  whose  personal 
Christian  experience  has  reached  the  highest 
levels.  In  passing,  it  should  be  clearly  stated 
and  definitely  emphasized  that  Christian  values 


CONVERSION  91 

in  character  are  not  always  coupled  with 
intense,  nor  necessarily  with  very  conscious, 
emotional  experience.  Doubtless  both  tem- 
perament and  mental  habit  have  much  to  do 
in  deciding  emotional  action.  While  it  is  true 
that  religious  experience  stirs  the  emotional 
soul,  no  mistake  could  be  more  mischievous 
than  to  assume  to  measure  the  values  of  re- 
ligious character  by  the  emotional  test.  The 
most  vital  condition  to  Christian  character  is 
an  intelligent  surrender  of  the  will  and  affec- 
tions to  the  divine  will.  This  may  occur 
without  great  emotional  accompaniment.  But 
wherever  this  has  taken  place  a  new  life  is 
installed  in  the  heart,  and  the  unemotional 
subject  of  that  life  may  be  most  soldierly 
heroic  and  loyal  in  all  essential  qualities  of 
Christian  character. 

In  summoning  witnesses  to  the  divine  fact 
of  Christian  conversion,  the  case  of  Saul  of 
Tarsus  should  not  be  omitted.  The  narrative 
of  his  conversion  is  fairly  plowed  into  the 
structure  of  Christian  history.  Paul  has  been 
called  a  visionary  and  an  epileptic,  and,  there- 
fore, an  unreliable  witness.  But,  as  Professor 
Borden  P.  Bowne  once  suggested,  "Saint  Paul 
may  have  had  a  fit  on  the  road  to  Damascus, 
but  it  has  been  the  only  known  fit  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  such  mighty  historical  consequences." 


92  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

In  the  light  of  "historical  consequences"  such 
criticism  as  the  foregoing  stands  out  in  naked 
absurdity.  The  fact  is  that  Saint  Paul  was 
one  of  the  most  dynamic  characters  of  all 
history.  He  was  a  man  of  superlative  gifts, 
rich  in  culture,  of  towering  ambitions,  of  im- 
perial will.  While  still  young  he  attained  to 
commanding  position  in  the  Jewish  nation. 
His  Pharisaical  zeal  was  unlimited  and  appar- 
ently unquenchable.  Highly  moral  in  life, 
conscientious  to  the  last  degree,  his  convictions 
were  rock-firm.  He  was  ready  to  oppose  to 
the  death  those  whom  he  believed  to  be  enemies 
of  the  true  religion.  He  was  the  trusted  and 
zealous  emissary  of  the  Jewish  Church.  To 
no  man  of  all  his  people  was  there  promised 
a  more  brilliant  career. 

But  suddenly  one  day  something  happened 
in  his  life.  There  came  to  him  a  revela- 
tion in  a  light  so  blinding  as  to  smite 
him  to  the  earth.  He  both  saw  the  face  and 
heard  the  voice  of  Jesus,  whom  he  was 
persecuting.  There  was  flashed  into  him 
the  consciousness  that  he  was  fighting 
against  God.  From  that  moment  he  turned 
his  back  upon  all  his  previous  life,  upon  his 
friends,  his  ambitions,  his  worldly  possessions 
and  prospects.  From  that  moment,  with  a 
changed   spirit,   he  entered   upon   a  new^   life. 


CONVERSION  93 

He  gave  himself  as  a  very  slave  to  Jesus  Christ. 
His  new  life,  from  its  very  beginning,  was 
marked  by  an  amazing  series  of  physical  hard- 
ships, suffering,  privation,  and  peril.  His  was 
an  unbroken  exemplification  of  the  highest 
character,  tempers,  and  conduct.  In  the  face 
of  all  obstacles  he  gave  himself  in  unstinted 
sacrifice,  that  he  might  preach  Christ  to  all 
men.  No  persecution  could  daunt  his  courage, 
no  hardship  quench  his  zeal.  In  physical 
weakness  and  in  strength,  in  privation  and 
want,  in  plenty  and  in  hunger,  in  season  and 
out  of  season  he  wrought  with  unabating  ardor 
to  fulfill  the  calling  given  him  of  Jesus  Christ. 
He  never  succumbed  to  discouragements.  He 
commanded  the  secret  of  a  holy  joy  amid  the 
most  depressing  environments.  His  spirit  rose 
in  sublime  fortitude  in  hours  of  severest  trial. 
He  was  a  gentleman,  a  great  lover  of  men, 
thoughtful  of  others  when  himself  in  want — 
and  all  this  always. 

One  day,  under  the  escort  of  a  Roman 
guard,  he  was  led  forth  from  prison  to  the 
headsman's  ax.  He  neither  murmured,  nor 
was  he  fearful.  His  fortitude  failed  not.  His 
last  remark  was  one  of  exultant  confidence 
that  death  was  to  him  the  gate  to  triumphant 
coronation.  Thus  there  passed  into  history  a 
moral    Colossus,    a    man    whose    thought   has 


94  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

swayed  the  Christian  centuries,  one  whose 
very  example  has  been  an  inspiration  to  high 
fortitude  and  endeavor  for  martyrs  and  saints 
for  two  millenniums.  The  career  of  Saul  of 
Tarsus,  both  as  persecutor  and  apostle,  is 
indelibly  written  in  history.  His  Christian 
conversion,  the  superlative  moral  heroism  of 
his  entire  after  life,  culminating  at  last  in  mar- 
tyrdom, have  never  been  explained  on  natural 
grounds.  They  form  a  history  of  a  human 
life  such  as  we  could  expect  only  from  the 
continuous  girdings  and  support  of  Divinest 
inspirations.  If  God,  by  his  Spirit,  were  not 
distinctively  in  this  life,  then  we  may  as  well 
at  once  abandon  all  claim  to  spiritual  values 
as  evidenced  in  what  we  know  as  "Christian 
conversion." 

Later,  but  still  in  the  early  centuries,  there 
is  furnished  one  other  preeminent  instance  of 
phenomenal  conversion.  In  the  ages  from 
Paul  to  Luther,  there  appears  no  more  illus- 
trious name  than  that  of  Augustine.  He  was 
born  in  Numidia  just  after  the  middle  of  the 
fourth  century.  He  was  highly  educated,  thor- 
oughly at  home  in  the  foremost  philosophical 
thought  of  his  times,  a  man  of  enormous  na- 
tive powers.  He  entered  upon  a  brilliant 
career  as  rhetorician  and  advocate,  the  pro- 
fession of  which  he  practiced    successively  at 


CONVERSION  95 

Tagaste,  Carthage,  Rome,  and  Milan.  His 
early  intellectual  life  wavered  between  a  pro- 
nounced skepticism  and  a  sort  of  philosophic 
faith.  He  was  withal  a  libertine,  thoroughly 
under  the  thrall  of  sensuality.  But,  with  all 
his  waywardness,  he  was  never  able  to  escape 
the  holy  example  of  his  Christian  mother — 
Monica.  In  his  Confessions  he  relates  as  clearly 
as  Saint  Paul  had  done  before  him  the  strug- 
gle that  went  on  between  his  higher  and  lower 
seKhood.  His  conscience  urged  him  to  right- 
eousness of  life;  his  lusts  held  him  in  bondage. 
Time  and  again  he  made  promise  of  reform,  but 
the  allurements  of  the  flesh  kept  him  irresolute. 

One  day,  when  in  his  garden  behind  his 
lodgings  in  Milan,  he  seemed  to  hear  a  voice 
which  said  to  him,  "Take  and  read."  This 
was  repeated  three  times  over.  He  opened 
the  Bible  apparently  at  random,  and  his  eye 
fell  upon  these  words  of  Saint  Paul:  "The 
night  is  far  spent,  the  day  is  at  hand:  let  us 
therefore  cast  off  the  works  of  darkness,  and 
let  us  put  on  the  armor  of  light.  Let  us  walk 
honestly,  as  in  the  day;  not  in  rioting  and 
drunkenness,  not  in  chambering  and  wanton- 
ness, not  in  strife  and  envying.  But  put  ye 
on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  make  not  pro- 
vision for  the  flesh,  to  fulfill  the  lusts  thereof." 

The  passage  searched  him  as  by  a  lightning 


96  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

flash.  He  made  instant  surrender  of  soul. 
From  that  moment  his  life,  with  unwavering 
consecration  of  its  tremendous  forces,  was 
dedicated  to  a  new  career.  .  He  developed  a 
religious  genius  of  the  highest  order.  He  lived 
the  life  of  a  saint.  Eucken  characterizes  him 
as  the  "single  great  philosopher  on  the  basis 
of  Christianity  proper  the  world  has  had." 
While  he  professed  himself  interested  only  "in 
God  and  the  soul,"  his  thought,  like  a  search- 
light, shot  out  into  all  questions  that  per- 
tained to  human  life.  Harnack,  in  substance, 
says  of  him: 

In  point  of  fact,  the  whole  development  of  Western 
life,  in  all  its  phases,  was  powerfully  affected  by  his 
teaching.  This,  his  unique  ascendency  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  thought  and  life  of  the  West,  is  due  in 
part  to  the  particular  period  in  history  in  which 
his  work  was  done,  in  part  to  the  richness  and 
depth  of  his  mind  and  the  force  of  his  individuality, 
and  in  part  to  the  special  circumstances  of  his 
conversion  to  Christianity.  He  stood  on  the  water- 
shed of  two  worlds.  The  old  world  was  passing 
away;  the  new  world  was  entering  upon  its  heritage; 
and  it  fell  to  him  to  mediate  the  transference  of 
the  culture  of  the  one  to  the  other.  It  has  been 
strikingly  remarked  that  the  miserable  existence 
of  the  Roman  empire  in  the  West  almost  seems 
to  have  been  prolonged  for  the  express  purpose  of 
affording  an  opportunity  for  the  influence  of  Au- 
gustine to  be  exerted  on  universal  history. 

From  that  day  of  his  conversion  Augustine 


CONVERSION  97 

lived  the  life  of  a  great  Christian.  His  theol- 
ogy and  philosophy,  more  than  those  of  any 
other  man  who  has  ever  lived,  with  the  possi- 
ble exception  of  Saint  Paul,  has  ruled  the 
thought  of  the  Church.  The  genius  of  his 
mind  and  heart  has  very  largely  decided  the 
course  of  Christian  history  even  down  to  our 
own  times.  The  Christian  life  of  Augustine, 
not  less  than  that  of  Saint  Paul,  must  be 
accredited  to  the  sovereign  incoming  and  abid- 
ing of  God  into  the  soul  of  a  great  human 
genius. 

I  have  specially  emphasized  the  cases  of 
Paul  and  of  Augustine,  because  of  the  im- 
perishable celebrity  of  these  men.  Philosophy, 
though  sometimes  unsympathetic,  has  been 
compelled  to  take  full  note  of  their  religious 
history.  But  by  no  means,  in  the  discussion 
of  this  subject,  is  one  under  the  necessity  of 
confining  himself  to  exceptional  characters. 
The  student  of  the  phenomena  of  Christian 
conversion  is  embarrassed  by  the  very  wealth 
of  his  material.  One  standing  on  the  cliffs 
might  as  well  undertake  to  count  the  number- 
less waves  of  the  sea,  as  to  attempt  a  sum- 
mons of  all  competent  witnesses  to  this  Chris- 
tian experience.  The  succession  of  these 
witnesses  has  been  unbroken  through  the  cen- 
turies,   and    their    numbers    have    formed    an 


98  RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

ever-growing  and  countless  army.  Conversion 
is  a  standing  moral  miracle  in  history.  Its 
operation  has  by  no  means  been  confined  to 
the  wise  and  the  gifted.  It  has  found  a  chief 
ministry  of  regeneration  and  illumination  among 
the  common  and  unlettered,  among  the  way- 
farers and  toilers  of  mankind.  Christ  himself 
pronounced  beatitudes  upon  the  meek,  the 
poor,  the  persecuted. 

It  awakened  the  scorn  and  ridicule  of  the 
haughty  and  exclusive  circles  in  the  classic 
civilizations  that  in  the  ranks  of  early  Chris- 
tianity "not  many  wise  men  after  the  flesh, 
not  many  mighty,  not  many  noble"  were 
enrolled.  But  there  dwelt  in  this  gospel  which 
so  appealed  to  poor  and  ordinary  men  an  up- 
lifting and  transforming  power  so  mighty  as 
morally  to  face  that  ancient  world  toward 
new  ideals.  Christianity  rapidly  spread  over 
the  Roman  empire,  and  its  own  ideals  were 
widely  substituted  for  the  classical  philos- 
ophies. While  making  its  appeals  to  all  strata 
of  society,  Christianity  carried  in  itself  an 
uplifting,  a  creative  and  inspiring,  power  which 
no  pagan  philosophy,  no  imperial  edicts,  could 
successfully  withstand.  It  was  a  power  which 
turned  that  ancient  "world  upside  down." 
Christianity  has  always  shown  a  marvelous 
power  for  uplifting,  illuminating,  ennobling  the 


CONVERSION  99 

common  man.  From  its  humblest  social  ranks, 
many  of  its  illustrious  workers  have  been 
lifted  to  the  glory  of  apostolic  careers.  But 
this  innumerable  army  of  witnesses — all,  both 
great  and  small,  larger  and  less — has  come  to 
the  Kingdom  through  the  portal  of  Christian 
conversion. 

What  are  some  of  the  evidential  values  of 
conversion  and  of  the  religious  experience  to 
which  it  is  the  introduction  .^^  When  it  comes 
to  the  downright  proof  of  any  moral  ques- 
tion rational  logic  is  frequently  unequal  to 
the  situation.  Religion  is  more  a  matter  of 
life  than  of  logic.  Life  reports  itself  through 
experience,  and  leaves  logic  to  take  care  of 
itself.  Still,  if  religious  experience  is  to  validify 
itself  in  practical  values  for  life,  it  is  a  necessity 
of  reason  that  the  criteria  of  such  experience 
should  fall  within  rational  rule.  In  an  attempt 
to  state  the  conditions  and  limitations  under 
which  rational  validity  can  be  given  to  expe- 
rience, I  know  of  no  one  who  has  more  suc- 
cessfully or  conclusively  accomplished  this 
task,  than  Professor  H.  Bisseker,  of  Richmond 
College,  London.  That  this  writer  may  speak 
for  himself,  I  quote  here  in  full  the  four  criteria 
which  he  lays  down: 

We  would  suggest  four  effective  tests  of  the 
vahdity  of  an  inward  experience: 


100        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

1.  It  must  be  in  harmony  with  reason,  and  must 
fit  naturally  into  the  general  framework  of  our 
knowledge.  It  may,  of  course,  transcend  the  limits 
of  knowledge  which  unaided  reason  has  yet  attained, 
but  it  may  not  contradict  reason. 

2.  It  must  accord  with  man's  own  inner  con- 
stitution. All  contact  with  truth  will  help  forward 
man's  seK-realization,  and  every  step  toward  full 
self-realization  implies  a  nearer  approach  to  the 
unification  of  the  self.  An  inward  experience, 
therefore,  which  claims  validity  must  tend  to  in- 
ward harmony  of  personality,  and  help  to  unify  life. 

3.  If  the  experience  be  of  an  ethical  or  religious 
character,  it  must,  further,  be  in  agreement  with 
the  highest  moral  sense  of  the  race,  and  action  on 
the  >  assumption  of  its  validity  must  carry  a  man 
further  morally  than  action  based  on  theories  less 
true.  Applied  universally,  it  must  be  such  as 
would  secure  universal  progress. 

4.  It  must  be  capable  of  becoming  universal. 
That  which  is  ultimately  true  can  scarcely  be 
accessible  only  to  a  limited  esoteric  circle.  Hence 
an  inward  experience  that  would  justify  its  validity 
to  others  must  be  such  that  each  who  fulfills  the 
needful  conditions  shall  be  able  to  attain  it  in  all 
its  essential  characteristics.^ 

As  this  writer  proceeds  to  say:  "These 
criteria  may  be  accepted  without  a  single 
reservation  in  the  realm  of  religious  experience." 
Under  the  fourth  test  our  author  calls  just 
attention  to  a  diflSculty  which  might  to  some 
minds  query  the  acceptance  of  this  test.  As 
has  already  been  noted,   the  phenomenal,   or 

^  See  The  Chief  Corner-Stone,  Dr.  W.  T.  Davison,  editor, 
pp.  225ff. 


CONVERSION  101 

emotional,  experience  in  conversion  is  far  from 
uniform  in  different  subjects.  It  has  been  a 
matter  of  serious  concern  to  many  sincere 
minds  that  they  have  never  been  able  to 
realize  in  their  own  experience  a  duplication 
of  certain  emotional  phenomena  to  which  others 
have  joyfully  testified  in  their  conversion. 
Many  have  sought  for  a  like  experience,  and 
it  has  been  a  grave  disappointment  to  them 
that  they  have  found  it  not.  At  this  point 
seemingly  certain  types  of  religious  experience 
do  not  seem  capable  of  universal  attainment. 
We  may  not  forget,  however,  that  the  validity 
of  religious  experience  must  have  final  attesta- 
tion on  ethical  rather  than  on  emotional  tests. 
"And  there  it  can  securely  rest.  For  the  main 
outline  of  evangelical  experience — the  change 
in  the  direction  of  the  will,  the  exercise  of 
faith  in  the  power  of  Christ,  the  resulting 
transformation  of  both  mind  and  heart,  and 
the  consequent  moral  progress,  steadily  ad- 
vancing toward  the  fullest  self-realization — 
this,  without  doubt,  is  possible  to  all." 

All  souls  that  struggle  to  aspire. 
All  hearts  of  prayer  by  thee  are  lit. 

The  remaining  chapters  of  this  study  will 
be  devoted  to  inquiry  as  to  some  of  the  evi- 
dential values  of  religious  experience. 


PART  SECOND 
EVIDENTIAL  VALUES 


V 

CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER 


The  dear  Lord's  best  interpreters 

Are  humble  human  souls; 
The  Gospel  of  a  life  like  theirs 

Is  more  than  books  or  scrolls. 
From  scheme  and  creed  the  light  goes  out. 

The  saintly  fact  survives: 
The  blessed  Master  none  can  doubt 

Revealed  in  holy  lives. 

— John  G.  Whittier. 

For  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  in  all  goodness  and  righteous- 
ness and  truth. — Ephesians  5.  9. 

That  ye  may  be  blameless  and  harmless,  the  sons  of  God, 
without  rebuke,  in  the  midst  of  a  crooked  and  perverse 
nation,  among  whom  ye  shine  as  lights  in  the  world. — 
Philippians  2.  15. 

There  are  multitudes  of  men  and  women  in  out-of-the- 
way  places,  in  backwoods,  towns  and  uneventful  farms,  who 
are  the  salt  of  the  earth  and  the  light  of  the  world  in  their 
communities,  because  they  have  had  experiences  which  re- 
vealed to  them  Realities  that  their  neighbors  missed,  and 
powers  to  live  by  which  the  mere  "churchgoers"  failed  to 
find. — Professor  Maurice  Jones. 

The  supreme  question  for  modern  civilization  is  the  forma- 
tion of  character.  Of  what  use  are  our  material  advance- 
ments if  they  leave  only  a  dismal  emptiness  within?  Of 
what  use  carrying  the  people  at  sixty  miles  an  hour  if  they 
are  fools  when  they  get  into  the  train  and  fools  when  they 
get  out  ?  Of  what  use  our  latest  telegraphy  if  it  flings  across 
the  world  no  better  news  than  of  commercial  frauds,  of 
society  intrigues,  of  the  follies  of  the  rich,  and  the  discontent 
of  the  poor?  You  may  start  your  common  schools,  and  train 
your  children  into  clever  devils — to  thieve  better,  to  lie 
inore  plausibly.  You  may  teach  them  to  read,  that  they 
may  saturate  their  minds  with  filth.  Any  education  that  is 
not  first  and  foremost  a  training  in  character  is  only  a 
preparation  for  villainy's  more  effective  service. — J,  Brierley. 


CHAPTER  V 
CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER 

The  word  "character"  is  old.  In  form  it 
is  almost  a  direct  transferrence  from  the  Greek. 
It  originally  stood  for  the  tool  of  the  stamper, 
as  also  for  the  impression  made,  as  in  the 
stamping  of  a  coin.  It  stood  for  an  identity, 
for  a  distinctive  marking  of  values.  It  came 
in  course  of  time  to  take  on  other  meanings. 
Webster  has  given  the  following,  which  well 
defines  its  modern  uses:  "The  sum  of  qualities 
or  features,  by  which  a  person  or  a  thing  is 
distinguished  from  others;  the  aggregate  of 
distinctive  mental  and  moral  qualities  belong- 
ing to  an  individual  or  a  race  as  a  whole;  the 
stamp  of  individuality  impressed  by  nature, 
education,  or  habit;  that  which  a  person  or 
thing  really  is;  essential  peculiarity;  kind;  sort; 
nature." 

The  distinctive  emergence  of  the  word 
"character"  into  moral  uses  is  perhaps  more 
due  to  Kant  than  to  any  other  writer.  He 
taught  that  moral  character  alone  is  character 
in  the  true  sense.     His  view  is  that  what  is 

107 


108        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

commonly  called  natural  character,  including 
physical  quality,  native  disposition,  and  tem- 
perament, is  merely  what  nature  has  made  a 
man.  Moral  character  is  something  which  a 
man  makes  for  himself.  The  factors  which 
enter  into  the  making  of  a  man's  natural  char- 
acter have  been  well  indicated  by  Principal 
Fairbairn.  He  names  six  factors:  "race,  fam- 
ily, place,  time,  education,  and  opportunity." 
These  factors  contribute  to  a  man  all  that 
simply  natural  conditions  can  furnish.  "The 
most  that  the  natural  view  expects  from  a 
man  is  that  he  be  equal  to  the  sum  of  all  the 
conditions  concerned  in  his  making.  If  he 
transcends  them,  then  we  are  landed  either 
in  an  insolubility  or  in  the  recognition  of  an 
unknown  factor  which  may  be  named  personal 
genius,  but  can  hardly  be  described  as  normal 
or  according  to  law.  In  any  case  this  appeal 
to  an  undiscovered  or  incalculable  cause  differs 
only  in  name  from  the  appeal  to  the  super- 
natural." 

Moral  character,  in  the  Kantian  sense,  is 
moral  inwardness.  This  kind  of  character 
comes  only  from  an  habitual,  purposeful  train- 
ing of  the  will  and  conscience  in  accordance 
with  the  demands  of  an  enlightened  under- 
standing. Character  thus  means  a  structure 
built  by  disciplinary  processes  in  conformity 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         109 

to  morally  ennobling  ideals.  It  remains  true, 
however,  that  character  built  after  the  most 
rugged  order  of  self-discipline,  may  still  be 
very  far  from  Christian.  Disciplined  character 
was  conspicuously  developed  in  the  schools 
of  ancient  Stoicism.  Kant  himself  was  much 
influenced  by  Stoical  ideals. 

Real  character,  good  or  bad,  is  the  outcome 
of  cumulative  processes.  Ideals  allure  the 
mind.  The  alluring  fruit  is  plucked  and  tasted. 
The  taste  begets  appetite,  desire.  Appetite 
creates  demand  for  repetition,  indulgence.  Re- 
peated indulgence  begets  habit,  fixity;  and  this 
means  the  shaping  of  the  soul  into  molds 
which  habit  forms,  character,  the  setting  of  a 
life  in  the  direction  of  its  destiny.  Whether 
this  direction  is  toward  good  or  ill  will  de- 
pend upon  the  quality  of  the  shaping  ideals, 
those  invisible  forces  which  give  finality  to 
the  controlling  habit.  All  high  and  valuable 
character  is  a  product  of  slow  growth,  growth 
toward  a  definite  goal.  It  is  something  to  be 
shaped  by  intelligent  purpose,  nurtured  in 
watchfulness,  self-discipline,  self-denial,  and  al- 
ways urged  on  by  diligent  effort.  It  is  not  a 
thing  of  mere  chance  or  of  spontaneous  growth. 
Pestalozzi  once  said:  "Toadstools  may  easily 
spring  forth  from  a  dunghill  when  it  rains; 
but  human  dignity,  spiritual  depth,  and  great- 


110        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

ness  of  character  do  not  grow  out  of  routine 
even  when  the  sun  shines."  It  thus  appears 
that  moral  character,  character  of  a  kind  to 
command  the  approval,  the  esteem,  and  the 
emulation  of  men,  is  a  prize  for  which  a  price 
must  be  paid,  even  the  price  of  eternal  vigilance. 

With  all  this,  when  we  come  to  study  the 
claims  for,  and  the  grounds  of,  distinctively 
Christian  character,  we  pass  to  a  new  realm 
of  thought  and  experience.  With  no  undue 
claim,  and  with  no  irrational  assumption,  it 
is  to  be  asserted  that  Christian  experience  is 
realized  only  in  a  spiritual  environment  with 
which  a  nonspiritual,  or  agnostic,  philosophy 
has  no  qualification  for  dealing.  It  was  funda- 
mental in  the  teaching  of  Saint  Paul  that  the 
merely  natural  man  cannot  know  the  things 
of  the  Spirit,  for  they  are  to  be  spiritually  dis- 
cerned. However  difiicult  to  philosophic  reason 
may  seem  this  doctrine,  however  audacious  its 
challenge  to  the  pride  of  intellect,  it  rests 
vitally  at  the  very  foundations  of  Christian 
experience. 

The  Christian  religion,  as  no  other  historic 
faith,  calls  for  a  direct,  conscious,  and  vital 
relationship  of  the  individual  soul  to  God. 
It  means  really  an  indwelling  of  God  in  the 
life  of  the  soul.  Its  fundamental  assumptions 
are:   that  for  man  as  a  sinner  God  has  insti- 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         111 

tuted  an  effective  redemption  from  sin;  that 
upon  the  penitent  soul  the  Divine  Spirit  sets 
the  direct  seal  of  pardon;  that  in  the  pardoned 
soul  there  is  wrought  a  moral  regeneration, 
begetting  within  that  soul  a  new,  divine  life; 
that  to  the  soul  thus  newborn  God  specifically, 
distinctively  imparts  himself.  It  is  a  function 
of  the  Spirit  to  bring  to  this  soul  a  sense  of 
its  adoption  into  God's  spiritual  household,  a 
comforting  sense  of  pardon  for  sin,  a  luminous 
consciousness  of  a  new  life  begun  in  God. 
All  this  initially.  In  all  the  after  Christian 
life  the  Holy  Spirit  is  to  companion  himself 
with  the  life  of  the  obedient  believer.  He 
abides  with  this  soul  as  Illumination,  Inspira- 
tion, Moral  Reenforcement,  Sanctifier,  Guide; 
so  that  within  the  life  there  are  richly  and 
increasingly  begotten  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit, 
such  as  "love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffering,  gen- 
tleness, goodness,  faith,  meekness,  temperance." 
Of  course  this  is  a  radical  program.  It  is  a 
program  so  removed  from  the  experience  of 
the  natural  man,  that  Saint  Paul  frankly  de- 
clares that  to  such  it  may  seem  foolishness. 
But  nothing  less  than  this,  Christianity  de- 
clares, is  God's  purpose  to  be  experimentally 
realized  in  human  life.  This  program  im- 
periously and  uncompromisingly  insists  that  it 
shall  be  tested  upon  its  own  conditions.     It 


112        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

must  be  tried  by  its  own  laws.  It  yields  to 
no  jurisdiction  of  unsympathetic  criticism  or  of 
alien  philosophy.  It  requires  absolute  surren- 
der and  obedience  of  soul.  Its  initiates  enter 
the  luminous  life  only  through  the  narrow 
portals  of  repentance,  obedience,  faith.  Christ 
said,  "If  any  man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall  knaiv 
of  the  doctrine." 

It  ought  to  be  profitable  to  glance  briefly 
at  the  biblical  ideals  of  the  godly  character. 
Central  among  the  precepts  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  the  demand  for  "goodness."  "Depart 
from  evil,  and  do  good."  Men  are  held  respon- 
sible for  moral  distinctions:  '*Woe  unto  them 
that  call  evil  good,  and  good  evil;  that  put 
darkness  for  light,  and  light  for  darkness; 
that  put  bitter  for  sweet,  and  sweet  for  bitter!" 
"Trust  in  the  Lord,  and  do  good."  "He  hath 
showed  thee,  O  man,  what  is  good;  and  what 
doth  the  Lord  require  of  thee,  but  to  do  justly, 
and  to  love  mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with 
thy  God?"  In  the  later  historic  developments 
of  the  Hebrew  religion  less  and  less  stress 
was  laid  upon  the  outer  and  ritual  performances 
of  worship,  and  an  increasing  emphasis  was 
laid  upon  the  hidden  motives  of  the  soul.  Jer- 
emiah, the  prophet  of  spiritual  vision,  placed 
Israel's  ideal  in  the  period  when  God  should 
make  a  new  covenant  with  his  people,  putting 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         113 

his  law  in  their  inward  parts,  and  writing  it 
in  their  hearts. 

In  the  New  Testament  we  discover  that 
Jesus  adds  both  extension,  depth,  and  clear- 
ness to  the  prophetic  conception  of  the  godly 
character.  The  goodness  of  God  is  with  him 
absolute.  He  also  sees  in  men  infinite  possi- 
bilities of  goodness.  He  places  upon  his  follow- 
ers the  most  imperative  and  exacting  demands 
for  goodness.  With  him  all  values  center  in 
motives.  The  heart  must  be  first  pure  before 
the  life  can  yield  good  fruits.  Not  that  which 
is  without,  but  that  which  is  within,  defileth 
the  man.  From  an  evil  heart  proceed  the 
evils  of  life.  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them.  A  good  tree  cannot  bring  forth  evil 
fruit.  Christ's  moral  mission  with  men  deals 
regeneratively  at  the  very  seats  of  the  soul. 
Righteousness  and  goodness  must  be  centrally 
enthroned  before  the  life  can  move  out  on  the 
highway  of  Christian  character.  The  pecul- 
iarity and  perfection  of  Christ's  system  is  that 
he  not  only  presents  in  himself  the  perfect, 
the  flawless,  example  of  goodness,  but,  as  we 
have  already  emphasized,  he  perfectly  imparts 
his  own  Spirit  to  all  who  fully  give  themselves 
to  him.  He  came  that  he  might  give  power 
to  men  to  become  the  sons  of  God,  even  to  as 
many  as  should  believe  on  his  name. 


114        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

No  teaching  could  be  more  definite,  clear, 
or  radical  than  the  pronouncements  of  Saint 
Paul  upon  the  new  life  in  Christ.  To  him  the 
Christian  life  is  a  life  exalted  and  separate  in 
the  world.  Its  subjects  are  distinct  from  all 
other  characters.  "That  which  is  born  of  the 
flesh  is  flesh;  and  that  which  is  born  of  the 
Spirit  is  spirit."  The  spiritual  life  is  begotten, 
is  born,  from  above.  The  Spirit  of  God  him- 
self witnesses  to  the  sonship  of  his  own  spiritual 
children.  We  "know  that  we  abide  in  him 
and  he  in  us,  because  he  hath  given  us  of  his 
Spirit."  Paul  makes  a  sharp  discrimination 
between  those  who  are  obedient  and  those 
who  are  disobedient  to  Christ  Jesus.  The 
former  he  describes  as  the  "children  of  light," 
the  latter  as  the  "children  of  darkness."  The 
children  of  light  are  those  who  walk  in  the 
Spirit,  and  they  are  known  by  their  charac- 
ters, "for  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  in  all  good- 
ness, and  righteousness  and  truth."  Again  he 
says:  "The  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace, 
longsuffering,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meek- 
ness, temperance:  against  such  there  is  no 
law."  Thus,  in  two  distinct  statements,  the 
apostle  presents  "goodness"  as  one  of  the 
fruits  of  the  Spirit.  It  would  seem  that  no 
terms  more  expressive  than  those  used  could 
be  employed  to  set  forth  the  kind  of  character 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         115 

which  is  expected  of  the  Spirit-guided  man — 
"all  goodness,  righteousness,  and  truth." 

There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  distinctive 
and  positive  teaching  of  the  New  Testament 
as  to  the  standards  of  Christian  character. 
If  this  teaching  is  true,  then  Christianity  in- 
stalls a  new  order  of  moral  life  in  human 
society.  We  are  forced  to  believe  that  God 
liimseK  has  undertaken  through  Christianity 
the  building  of  a  new  spiritual  kingdom  in 
the  earth,  a  kingdom  the  ultimate  purpose  of 
which  is  the  spiritual  transformation  of  man- 
kind. Preeminent  among  the  qualities  of 
citizenship  in  this  kingdom  is  that  which 
Christ  and  Saint  Paul  both  so  distinctly  em- 
phasize— "goodness,"  righteousness,  saintliness 
of  character.  So  much  for  biblical  ideals. 
How,  then.^  Are  all  the  demands  of  the  Bible 
for  a  distinct  righteousness  of  character  Utopian 
and  impracticable.^  Are  all  the  high  ideals  of 
the  New  Testament  for  the  individual  and 
for  civilization  only  absurd  and  foolish  dreams. ^^ 
Let  us  ask  twenty  centuries  of  Christian  his- 
tory to  give  us  answer. 

The  most  persistent,  transforming,  and  up- 
lifting single  force  in  civilization  for  the  last 
two  thousand  years  has  been  the  Christian 
religion.  Let  it  be  admitted  that  in  many 
periods  of  its  history  its  essential  power  and 


116        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

purity  have  been  much  neutrahzed  by  the 
intermingHng  in  its  life  of  ahen  and  worldly 
elements.  Nevertheless,  Christianity  in  its  en- 
tire course  has  borne  on  its  bosom  the  world's 
weal.  Its  history  has  been  attended  by  all 
the  reforms  that  have  proven  of  value  to 
human  society.  Wherever  it  has  prevailed  it 
has  created  a  high  standard  of  social  morality, 
has  begotten  among  men  a  helpful  sense  of 
human  brotherhood,  has  invested  the  life  of 
the  poor  with  an  atmosphere  of  sympathy  and 
of  hope,  has  inspired  the  noblest  ministries 
of  benevolence  for  the  unfortunate  and  the 
needy.  It  has  exalted  everywhere  the  ideals 
of  human  worth  by  presenting  God  as  the 
Father  of  all  souls,  and  by  holding  before  all 
men  the  possibilities  of  a  glorified  immortality. 
Throughout  its  history  Christianity  has  been 
the  creator  and  always  the  promoter  of  every 
good  which  has  ministered  to  the  social,  intel- 
lectual, and  moral  life  of  mankind.  Historic 
Christianity  took  its  rise  in  a  most  forbidding 
world,  a  world  in  which  government,  religions, 
castes,  traditions,  social  and  moral  customs, 
all  of  which  would  seem  to  be  invulnerable 
to  the  new  faith,  were  leagued  against  it. 
The  Roman  world  had  wondrously  gathered 
into  itself  at  this  time  the  great  laws,  philos- 
ophies, and  religions  of  mankind.     Regnant  in 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         117 

all  lands  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  Pillars  of 
Hercules,  Rome  was  now  more  cosmopolitan, 
especially  in  its  philosophy  and  religion,  than 
had  ever  been  true  of  any  preceding  civiliza- 
tion. Herself  the  most  legally  imperial  of 
governments,  highly  jealous  of  her  prerogatives, 
her  heritage  was  rich  in  ideals  of  the  most 
perfect  art,  in  philosophies  the  greatest  to 
which  human  thought  had  ever  given  birth, 
and  in  her  Pantheon  she  had  domesticated 
the  most  diverse  religions.  Her  general  atmos- 
phere was  favorable  to  large  freedom  of  thought. 
But,  notwithstanding  her  unlimited  dominion, 
her  vast  heirship  of  intellect  and  of  art,  and 
the  wide  latitude  of  her  religious  hospitality, 
this  Rome  was  effete  and  dissolute.  There 
inhered  in  her  communities  all  extremes  of 
wealth  and  of  poverty,  of  luxury  and  of  wretch- 
edness. Her  society  was  caste-ridden.  For  the 
slave  and  the  poor,  the  haughty  aristocrat 
had  no  more  regard  than  for  so  many  beasts 
of  burden.  Rome  was  the  mistress  of  the 
world,  but  in  the  very  height  of  her  power 
her  most  privileged  life  was  cynical,  faithless, 
dissolute,  blase,  hopeless. 

If  we  were  to  consider  alone  the  moral  and 
social  conditions  of  this  pagan  world,  they 
were  such  as  to  make  seemingly  impossible  the 
success  of  a  new  religion  founded  by  a  Galilsean 


118        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

Peasant,  himself  born  in  an  ox-shed,  and 
meeting  death  at  last  by  crucifixion.  The 
peasant  would  be  despised,  and  his  crucifixion 
would  be  accepted  as  a  brand  of  deepest  crim- 
inality. But  if  to  all  this  we  add  the  fact  that 
Christianity  in  its  very  nature  carried  the 
most  open  challenge  and  rebuke  against  the 
cherished  traditions  and  social  customs  of  this 
powerful  world,  it  can  appear  no  less  than  a 
veritable  miracle  of  Almightiness  that  it  could 
have  secured  for  itself  any  standing  whatso- 
ever in  that  Roman  world.  To  the  philosophic 
mind  the  preaching  of  the  cross  was  foolishness. 
To  the  imperial  vision  the  proposal  to  estab- 
lish a  new  spiritual  kingdom  among  men  was 
an  absurdity.  To  the  powerful  and  the  haughty 
it  was  unthinkable  that  a  religion  having  such 
an  origin  could  really  bring  any  ministry  to 
their  deepest  needs.  Its  social  standing  was 
too  humble  and  despised  to  command  for  it 
any  favor,  much  less  a  welcome,  in  fashionable 
circles  of  that  imperial  age.  Christ  unhesitat- 
ingly began,  and  carried  on,  his  ministry  among 
the  poor.  This  in  itself  was  an  affront  to  the 
ruling  social  life.  For  a  long  period  it  was  a 
contemptuous  taunt  against  Christianity  that 
it  recruited  its  subjects  from  the  slaves  and 
outcast  populations,  from  those  whom  society 
branded    as    sinners    and    harlots.      Moreover, 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         119 

Christianity  moved  under  standards  on  which 
were  inscribed  ideals  of  a  new  and  divinely 
inspired  character.  It  called  for  the  highest 
and  purest  moral  conduct  in  the  life  of  its 
subjects.  Its  very  program  awakened  against 
it  the  intense  ridicule  and  resentment  of  the 
age  to  which  it  came. 

Another  historic  element  of  opposition  to  be 
duly  considered,  is  that  which  arose  in  the 
Hebrew  community.  The  Hebrew  religion  had 
a  large  place  among  the  faiths  tolerated  in 
Rome.  Christ  himself  was  a  Jew.  But  his 
method  called  for  such  radical  departure  from, 
such  revision  and  enlargement  of,  the  out- 
standing things  in  Hebrew  usage,  as,  if  he 
were  to  succeed,  to  result  in  the  very  displace- 
ment of  the  Hebrew  religion  itself.  Naturally, 
Christianity  early  drew  to  itself  intense  opposi- 
tion from  the  Jewish  community.  The  inevi- 
table outcome  was  that  the  official  power  of 
Judaism  employed  itself  in  promoting  the  most 
violent  opposition  to  the  Christian  faith. 

The  outcome  of  all  was  that  a  religion 
which  at  first  seemed  of  so  obscure  and  con- 
temptible an  origin  as  to  command  for  itself 
only  a  judgment  of  scorn  and  ridicule,  yet,  as 
for  mysterious  reasons  it  continued  to  grow, 
finally  drew  to  itself  the  most  formidable  and 
destructive  persecution  which  could  be  devised 


120        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

by  the  inventive  genius,  or  carried  into  execu- 
tion by  the  seeming  omnipotence,  of  the  Roman 
empire.  The  ordeal  of  fire  and  blood,  an 
ordeal  of  torture  and  of  cruelty  as  inspired  by 
ofiicial  fury,  which  thus  tested  the  very  life 
of  early  Christianity,  is  something  which  sur- 
passes the  power  of  our  imagination  to  picture. 

The  fact  to  be  emphasized  is  that  there  was 
some  prophetic  inspiration,  some  moral  quality, 
inhering  in  the  faith  of  those  early  Christians 
that  made  them  invincible  against  all  human 
opposition.  After  the  Roman  authorities  had 
done  their  worst,  Tertullian  could  say  to  them: 
"All  your  ingenious  cruelties  can  accomplish 
nothing;  they  are  only  a  lure  to  this  sect. 
Our  numbers  increase  the  more  you  destroy  us. 
The  blood  of  the  Christians  is  their  seed.  .  .  . 
We  are  a  people  of  yesterday,  and  yet  we  have 
filled  every  place  belonging  to  you — cities, 
islands,  castles,  towns,  assemblies,  your  very 
camp,  your  tribes,  companies,  palace,  senate, 
forum.  We  leave  your  temples  only.  You 
count  your  armies,  but  our  numbers  in  a 
single  province  will  be  greater." 

In  the  year  A.  D.  30,  about  the  time  of  the 
crucifixion,  the  followers  of  Christ  may  have 
numbered  about  five  hundred.  By  A.  D.  100 
the  disciples  had  increased  to  five  hundred 
thousand.     By  A.  D.  311,  when  the  fires  of 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         121 

martyrdom  had  died  out  and  the  arms  of  the 
executioners  were  palsied  from  overuse,  the 
long  orgie  of  human  butchery  having  exhausted 
itself,  the  Christians  numbered  thirty  million, 
and  a  Christian  emperor  sat  upon  the  throne 
of  the  Caesars.  At  the  close  of  the  entire  tragic 
series  it  was  the  testimony  of  Tertullian  that 
Christians  had  been  persecuted  more  on  ac- 
count of  their  religion  than  for  all  other  causes. 
We  are  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  they  were 
persecuted  because  of  their  outstanding  char- 
acter, because  of  the  austere  purity  of  their 
morals,  because  of  their  unswerving  loyalty 
to  their  convictions,  because  of  their  firm  and 
open  nonconformity  to  what  they  regarded  as 
forbidden  usages,  yet  usages  thoroughly  domes- 
ticated in  the  social  and  moral  life  of  the 
age.  All  this  was  made  a  ground  of  capital 
offense  against  the  Christians. 

And  what  finally  were  the  offenses  of  these 
Christians.?  They  utterly  refused  to  join  in 
the  deification  of  the  emperors.  They  would 
not  take  a  pagan  oath.  They  would  not  join 
in  the  rites  of  pagan  worship.  They  were,  in 
many  cases,  opposed  to  military  service.  They 
gave  no  countenance  to  the  bloody  games  of 
the  amphitheater  and  kindred  spectacles.  In 
their  very  multiplicity,  they  became  a  menace 
to    the   faiths    of    polytheism    throughout    the 


122         RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

empire.  A  complaint  that  Celsus  made  against 
them  was  that  they  were  "men  walhng  them- 
selves off  and  isolating  themselves  from  man- 
kind." He  charged  them  with  disloyalty  to 
the  state,  and  as  impairing  the  solidity  of  the 
civilized  world  by  their  departure  from  the 
common  belief.  To  many  of  the  charges  of 
Celsus  the  Christians  would,  indeed,  have  to 
plead  guilty.  They  did  abstain  from  the  faiths 
and  rites  of  paganism.  They  were  bound  in 
all  conscience  to  stand  by  the  demands  of 
their  faith,  a  faith  which  from  its  very  nature 
was  out  of  harmony  with,  and  which  must 
enter  its  protest  and  denial  against,  much  of 
the  ruling  customs  and  faiths  of  the  age. 

The  history  of  these  early  Christians  is 
indeed  marvelous.  It  can  be  accounted  for 
on  no  basis  of  creed  or  of  organization.  Chris- 
tianity had  both  creed  and  organization.  But 
the  real  and  only  secret  of  its  persistence  and 
growth  was  in  the  life  of  God  as  experienced 
in  the  souls  of  men.  This  life  proved  itself 
invincible  in  the  face  of  all  opposition.  Its 
influence,  wherever  felt,  was  transforming.  It 
created  a  new  motive  and  a  new  character 
wherever  it  entered  into  the  life  of  men.  Justin 
Martyr,  the  cool-headed  philosopher,  eloquently 
says  that  everywhere  in  the  wake  of  Chris- 
tianity were  to  be  found  "slaves  of  sensuality 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         123 

who  had  become  pure  in  morals,  the  avaricious 
and  miserly  who  gave  themselves  in  generous 
ministry  to  those  in  need,  and  the  revengeful 
who  had  learned  to  pray  for  their  enemies." 
He  attributes  all  this  to  the  grace  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  experienced  in  the  lives  of  these 
men.  Origen  testifies  to  great  numbers  of 
persons  who  through  the  same  grace  were 
recovered  from  licentiousness,  injustice,  and 
covetousness. 

In  considering  the  power  of  Christianity  to 
transform,  and  to  give  new  characters  to, 
sinful  and  bad  men,  it  seems  well-nigh  invidious 
to  cite  single  instances.  The  reformation  and 
salvation,  the  installment  into  right  living,  of 
abandoned  and  otherwise  hopeless  men  is  the 
standing  miracle  of  Christianity.  It  was  the 
sneer  of  Celsus  and  of  Lucian,  the  classical 
satirists,  that  Christianity  exploited  itself  in 
the  reformation  of  slaves,  of  thieves,  and  that 
it  sought  its  trophies  among  the  very  off- 
scourings of  human  society.  The  fact  which 
robs  the  sneer  of  its  sting  is  the  ages-long 
demonstration  which  Christianity  has  furnished 
of  its  power  to  lift  the  representatives  of  these 
very  classes  into  pure  and  saintly  character. 
Neither  history  nor  philosophy  any  longer  ne- 
glects nor  scorns  to  give  candid  attention  to 
this  class  of  phenomena. 


124        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

Gibbon's  prepossessions  were  not  favorable 
to  Christianity.  We  are  hardly  prepared  to 
expect  from  him  fair  treatment  for  even  the 
Christian  name.  But  prejudiced  historian 
though  he  was,  he  says,  "The  primitive  Chris- 
tian demonstrated  his  faith  by  his  virtues." 
Speaking  of  the  emperor,  Constantine,  he  says: 
"Under  the  manifest  inadequacy  of  pagan 
philosophy  to  reform  the  morals  of  the  people, 
he  might  observe  with  pleasure  the  progress  of 
a  religion  which  diffused  among  the  people 
a  pure,  benevolent,  and  universal  system  of 
ethics,  adapted  to  every  duty  and  every  con- 
dition of  life;  recommended  as  the  will  and 
reason  of  the  supreme  Deity,  and  enforced  by 
the  sanction  of  eternal  rewards  and  punish- 
ments." 

Lecky,  the  famous  historian  of  European 
morals,  says: 

There  can  indeed  be  little  doubt  that,  for  nearly 
two  hundred  years  after  its  establishment  in  Europe, 
the  Christian  community  exhibited  a  moral  purity 
which,  if  it  has  been  equaled,  has  never  for  any 
long  period  been  surpassed.  Completely  separated 
from  the  Roman  world  that  was  around  them, 
abstaining  alike  from  political  life,  from  appeals 
to  the  tribunals,  and  from  military  occupations, 
looking  forward  continually  to  the  immediate  ad- 
vent of  their  Master,  and  to  the  destruction  of  the 
empire  in  which  they  dwelt,  and  animated  by  all 
the  fervor  of  a  young  religion,  the  Christians  found 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         125 

within  themselves  a  whole  order  of  ideas  and  feel- 
ings suflficiently  powerful  to  guard  them  from  the 
contamination  of  their  age. 

Doctor  T.  R.  Glover,  in  his  great  work  The 
Conflict  of  Religions  in  the  Early  Roman 
Empire,  declares  of  the  early  Christians: 

They  were  astonishingly  upright,  pure,  and  hon- 
est; they  were  serious;  and  they  had  in  themselves 
inexplicable  reserves  of  moral  force  and  a  happiness 
far  beyond  anything  that  the  world  knew.  They 
were  transfigured,  as  they  owned.  Some  would 
confess  to  wasted  and  evil  lives,  but  something 
had  happened,  which  they  connected  with  Jesus, 
or  a  Holy  Spirit,  but  everything  in  the  long  run 
turned  upon  Jesus.  .  .  .  That  Christianity  retained 
its  own  character  in  the  face  of  the  most  desperate 
efforts  of  its  friends  to  turn  it  into  a  philosophy 
congenial  to  the  philosophies  of  the  day  was  the 
result  of  the  strong  hold  it  had  taken  upon  innu- 
merable simple  people,  who  had  found  in  it  the 
power  of  God  in  the  transformation  of  their  own 
characters  and  instincts,  and  who  clung  to  Jesus 
Christ,  to  the  great  objective  facts  of  his  incarna- 
tion and  his  death  upon  the  cross,  as  the  firm  founda- 
tion laid  in  the  rock  against  which  the  floods  of 
theory  might  beat  in  vain. 

William  James,  clear-headed  and  cool-hearted 
as  a  philosopher,  thought  it  worth  his  while 
to  give  distinct  and  exhaustive  study  to  this 
very  field.  He  certainly  cannot  be  charged 
with  any  special  leaning  to  "evangelical  ortho- 
doxy,"  nor   with   overbias   toward   traditional 


U6        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

creeds.  It  is  all  the  more  interesting  to  note 
his  open-minded  and  high  valuation  of  the 
facts  of  Christian  conversion.  However  search- 
ingly  he  may  have  traced  the  psychology  of 
the  process,  he  does  not  deny  the  divineness 
of  its  cause,  nor  its  permanent  values  for 
character  and  life.  He  has  gathered  many 
remarkable  instances  of  Christian  conversion. 
From  these,  I  cite  one,  not  simply  because 
of  its  typical  character,  but  especially  for  the 
reason  that  its  subject  came  somewhat  inti- 
mately under  my  own  observation.  The 
experience  of  Mr.  S.  H.  Hadley  is  related  as 
follows: 

One  Tuesday  evening  I  sat  in  a  saloon  in  Harlem, 
a  homeless,  a  friendless,  dying  drunkard.  I  had 
pawned  or  sold  everything  that  would  bring  a  drink. 
I  could  not  sleep  unless  I  was  dead  drunk.  I  had 
not  eaten  for  days,  and  for  four  nights  preceding 
I  had  suffered  with  delirium  tremens,  or  the  hor- 
rors, from  midnight  till  morning.  I  had  often  said: 
"I  will  never  be  a  tramp.  I  will  never  be  cornered, 
for  when  that  time  comes,  if  it  ever  comes,  I  will 
find  a  home  in  the  bottom  of  the  river."  As  I  sat 
thinking  I  seemed  to  feel  some  great  and  mighty 
presence.  I  did  not  know  then  what  it  was.  I  did 
learn  afterward  that  it  was  Jesus,  the  sinner's 
friend.  I  walked  up  to  the  bar  and  pounded  it 
with  my  fist  till  I  made  the  glasses  rattle.  Those 
who  stood  by  drinking  looked  on  with  scornful 
curiosity.  I  said  I  would  never  take  another  drink, 
if  I  died  on  the  street,  and  really  I  felt  as  though 
that    would    happen    before    morning.     Something 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         127 

said,  '*If  you  want  to  keep  this  promise,  go  and 
have  yourself  locked  up."  I  went  to  the  nearest 
station  house  and  had  myself  locked  up. 

I  was  placed  in  a  narrow  cell,  and  it  seemed  as 
though  all  the  demons  that  could  find  room  came 
in  that  place  with  me.  This  was  not  all  the  com- 
pany I  had  either.  No,  praise  the  Lord;  that  dear 
Spirit  that  came  to  me  in  the  saloon  was  present 
and  said,  "Pray."  I  did  pray,  and  though  I  did 
not  feel  any  great  help,  I  kept  on  praying.  As 
soon  as  I  was  able  to  leave  my  cell  I  was  taken 
to  the  police  court  and  remanded  back  to  the  cell. 
I  was  finally  released,  and  found  my  way  to  my 
brother's  house,  where  every  care  was  given  me. 
While  lying  in  bed  the  admonishing  Spirit  never 
left  me,  and  when  I  arose  the  following  Sabbath 
morning  I  felt  that  day  would  decide  my  fate, 
and  toward  evening  it  came  into  my  head  to  go  to 
Jerry  McAuley's  Mission.  I  went.  The  house 
was  packed,  and  with  great  difficulty  I  made  my 
way  to  the  space  near  the  platform.  There  I  saw 
the  apostle  to  the  drunkard  and  the  outcast — 
that  man  of  God,  Jerry  McAuley.  He  rose,  and 
amid  deep  silence  told  his  experience.  There  was 
a  sincerity  about  this  man  that  carried  conviction 
with  it,  and  I  found  myself  saying,  'T  wonder  if 
God  can  save  me?''  I  hstened  to  the  testimony 
of  twenty -five  or  thirty  persons,  every  one  of  whom 
had  been  saved  from  rum,  and  I  made  up  my 
mind  that  I  would  be  saved  or  die  right  there. 
When  the  invitation  was  given,  I  knelt  down  with 
a  crowd  of  drunkards.  Jerry  made  the  first  prayer. 
Then  Mrs.  McAuley  prayed  fervently  for  us.  O, 
what  a  conflict  was  going  on  for  my  poor  soul! 
A  blessed  whisper  said,  "Come";  the  devil  said, 
"Be  careful."  I  halted  but  for  a  moment,  and 
then,  with  a  breaking  heart,  I  said,  "Dear  Jesus, 


128        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

can  you  help  me?"  Never  with  mortal  tongue  can 
I  describe  that  moment.  Although  up  to  that 
moment  my  soul  had  been  filled  with  indescribable 
gloom,  I  felt  the  glorious  brightness  of  the  noonday 
sun  shine  into  my  heart.     I  felt  I  was  a  free  man. 

0  the  precious  feeling  of  safety,  of  freedom,  of 
resting  on  Jesus!  I  felt  that  Christ  with  all  his 
brightness  and  power  had  come  into  my  life;  that, 
indeed,  old  things  had  passed  away  and  all  things 
had  become  new. 

From  that  moment  till  now  I  have  never  wanted 
a  drink  of  whisky,  and  I  have  never  seen  money 
enough  to  make  me  take  one.  I  promised  God 
that  night  that  if  he  would  take  away  my  appetite 
for  strong  drink,  I  would  work  for  him  all  my  life. 
He  has  done  his  part,  and  I  have  been  trying  to 
do  mine. 

This  is  a  very  wonderful  narrative.  But 
from  years  of  observation  of  Samuel  H.  Hadley, 

1  can  personally  testify  to  the  fact  that  he 
lived  a  pure  and  highly  useful  Christian  life, 
dying  at  last  in  the  most  vivid  triumphs  of 
the  Christian  faith. 

Harold  Begbie,  in  his  Twice  Born  Men,  a 
book  which  has  had  a  multitude  of  readers, 
gives  a  photographic  description  of  several 
equally  striking  cases.  Browning,  in  Ned 
Bratts,  has  invested  such  a  biography  with 
his  own  poetic  genius.  The  foregoing  citations 
from  the  general  fields  of  history  and  philos- 
ophy are  sufficient  to  indicate  something  of 
the  impression  which  the  demonstrated  power 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         129 

of  Christianity  to  transform  and  to  morally 
uplift  human  character  has  made  upon  the 
great  reviewers  of  the  world's  deeds  and 
thought.  Before,  however,  taking  leave  of  the 
definite,  and  exceedingly  important  and  fruit- 
ful, subject  of  this  chapter,  it  will  be  profitable 
for  us  briefly  to  review  some  of  the  larger 
fields  in  the  history  of  modern  Christianity. 

The  character-product  attributable  alone  to 
the  indwelling  of  God's  Spirit  in  the  human 
soul  has  been  a  distinct,  rich,  and  continuous 
phenomenon  in  all  the  Christian  ages.  History 
fairly  stated  seems  not  more  definitely  to 
testify  to  anything  than  to  the  fact  that  Chris- 
tian character  is  a  product  of  God's  indwelling 
and  in  working  Spirit  in  the  soul  of  man.  To 
deny  this  would  be  to  leave  the  regenerative 
work  of  Christianity  an  outstanding  enigma. 
To  deny  this  would  be  to  classify  Christianity 
itself  as  a  superfluous  thing  in  the  world's 
history.  To  deny  this  would  be,  in  the  light 
of  the  obvious  and  gravest  moral  needs  of 
the  race,  to  shut  away  from  human  view  any 
just  ground  of  hope  for  a  regenerated  and 
transformed  spiritual  future. 

In  all  periods  of  its  highest  life,  and  of  its 
most  signal  moral  conquests,  the  Church  has 
most  emphasized  the  doctrine  and  experience 
of  the  Spirit  in  the  life  of  the  believer.     In 


130        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

the  first  two  and  a  half  centuries  it  was  not 
formulated  creed,  not  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tion, not  political  cohesion,  but  the  witnessing 
and  testifying  life  of  the  Spirit  that  fed  and 
fanned  the  quenchless  fires  of  the  faith.  As 
has  been  emphasized,  the  Church  of  this 
period  faced  the  concentrated  scorn  and  ridicule 
of  the  world;  its  appointed  and  unavoidable 
path  lay  through  an  inferno  of  persecution 
and  martyrdom,  the  very  story  of  which  has 
appalled  the  heart  of  subsequent  ages.  Yet 
the  spirit  of  this  Church  was  invincible,  and 
its  storm-swept  path  is  signalized  and  made 
illustrious  by  the  great  saints  and  confessors 
who  form  an  unbroken  succession  in  its  history. 
The  period  of  the  Reformation  is  distinctly 
luminous  by  its  insistence  upon  the  presence 
and  work  of  the  Spirit  in  the  lives  of  men. 
In  our  casual  reflections  upon  this  great  period 
a  few  names,  such  as  Wycliffe,  Huss,  Calvin, 
Zwingli,  and  Knox,  naturally  occupy  the  fore- 
ground of  our  thought,  and  perhaps  to  the 
exclusion  of  a  multitude  of  lesser  characters 
who  wrought  vitally  in  this  world -crisis.  The 
Reformers,  the  Reformation  itself,  were  gravely 
handicapped  by  dogmas  and  traditions  which 
centuries  of  ecclesiastical  domination  had  im- 
posed upon  human  thought.  The  Reformation, 
however   great    and    beneficent    in    itself,    left 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         131 

in  popular  belief  large  areas  of  error  from 
which  the  Christian  thinking  of  future  ages 
alone  could  work  complete  emancipation.  The 
Reformation  is  not  to  be  belittled.  It  was 
an  epoch  in  which  the  moral  levels  of  the 
world  were  visibly  raised.  It  was  a  great 
emergence  in  which  large  sections  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church  left  behind  them  Egyptian  bond- 
age, and  went  forth  into  territories  of  new 
intellectual  and  spiritual  liberty,  territories  rich 
in  the  prophecy  of  a  new  progress  for  man- 
kind. 

But  the  one  great  discovery  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, the  one  thing  which  gave  it  chief  sig- 
nificance, was  its  proclamation  of  the  Divine 
Spirit  in  his  relations  to  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual soul.  Luther  himself,  like  many  of  the 
greatest  spiritual  teachers,  was  lifted  to  a  new 
level  and  to  a  new  vision,  by  what  for  his 
whole  after-career  was  an  epoch-making  spir- 
itual revelation.  As  a  typical  confession  of 
his  faith  he  once  wrote:  "No  man  can  under- 
stand God  or  God's  Word  unless  he  has  it 
revealed  immediately  by  the  Holy  Ghost;  but 
nobody  can  receive  anything  from  the  Holy 
Ghost  unless  he  experience  it.  In  experience 
the  Holy  Ghost  teaches  us  in  his  own  school, 
outside  of  which  nothing  of  value  can  be 
learned." 


132        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

In  relation  to  the  distinctive  doctrines  and 
experiences  of  the  Spirit,  no  single  movement 
is  perhaps  more  instructive  than  that  of 
Methodism.  John  Wesley,  the  recognized 
founder  and  leader  of  the  Methodist  move- 
ment, was  highly  educated,  strictly  moral, 
conscientiously  religious.  In  type  his  mind 
was  highly  philosophical.  John  Snaith  has 
said  of  Wesley: 

In  some  respects  he  was  much  superior  to  Hegel, 
in  others  he  was  much  inferior.  If  Hegel  and 
Wesley  could  have  been  blended  into  one  person, 
such  a  person  would  have  been  near  the  stature 
of  the  apostle  Paul.  At  any  rate,  it  only  requires 
the  logical  philosophy  of  the  Spirit  as  unfolded  by 
Hegel  infused  into  that  of  Wesley,  or  Wesley's  into 
that  of  Hegel,  to  have  a  philosophy  of  the  Spirit 
as  nearly  perfect  as  possible. 

Yet,  up  to  a  given  period,  Wesley  was 
almost  entirely  lacking  in  that  definite  power 
which  afterward  transformed  him  into  the  peer- 
less evangelist  of  the  Christian  ages.  After 
long  and,  what  appeared  to  be,  fruitless  en- 
deavor, he  was  one  day  startled  by  the  direct 
question,  "Does  the  Spirit  of  God  bear  witness 
with  your  spirit  that  you  are  a  child  of  God.'^" 
To  this  question  he  gave  solicitous  attention 
and  study  for  about  two  years.  Under  what 
would  appear  very  simple  circumstances,  as  in 
a  revealing  flash,  he  suddenly  felt  his  "heart 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         133 

strangely  warmed."  He  says:  "An  assurance 
was  given  me,  that  He  had  taken  away  my 
sins,  even  mine,  and  saved  me  from  the  law 
of  sin  and  death."  This  experience  was  epochal. 
It  dated  for  John  Wesley  the  beginnings  of 
an  evangelical  career  which  ranks  him  hardly 
second  to  any  of  the  great  workers  of  the 
Christian  Church. 

Wesley  was  now  thirty-five  years  of  age. 
He  lived  to  the  age  of  eighty -eight  years. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  in  the  remaining 
fifty-three  years  he  lived  in  a  broad  arena, 
and  in  the  most  open  publicity,  the  life  of  a 
saint.  He  died  the  most  noted  man  in  England. 
He  was  revered,  honored,  and  loved  as  no 
other  man  of  his  day.  The  great  emphasis 
of  his  religious  teaching  was  upon  the  regen- 
erating and  witnessing  mission  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  the  soul  of  the  believer.  He  was  the 
chief  leader  and  organizer  of  a  great  spiritual 
movement.  To-day,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
generations  of  Methodists  dead,  many  millions 
of  living  witnesses  are  enrolled  in  those  dis- 
tinctive communions  of  which  he  is  the  recog- 
nized founder.  As  in  all  large  aggregations  of 
human  nature,  Methodism  in  parts  may  have 
been  characterized  by  limitations,  weaknesses, 
and  faults.  But,  in  the  sum  of  its  life,  covering 
a  period  of  more  than  one  hundred  and  seventy- 


134         RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENXE 

five  years.,  it  has  furnished  to  the  world  a 
great  army  of  exemplar^'  Christian  Kves,  and 
has  increased  the  calendar  of  saints  by  many 
names  worthy  of  the  best  traditions  of  the 
apostohc  age.  The  soundness  of  the  spiritual 
interpretation  of  such  regenerative  movements 
as  were  led  by  Wesley  is  sufficiently  e^-idenced 
by  the  fact  that  they  never  arise  save  under 
the  d^Tlamic  of  high  spiritual  inspirations. 
Such  movements  can  be  accounted  for  only 
by  the  incoming  of  the  Spirit  of  Pentecost  upon 
the  hves  and  hearts  of  the  community. 

In  connection  with  any  sane  and  safe  teach- 
ing concerning  the  Spirit's  transforming  and 
character-forming  mission,  there  are  several 
facts  to  be  guarded  and  emphasized: 

First.  It  would  be  a  one-sided  and  essen- 
tially false  ^-iew  to  lay  a  chief  stress  upon  the 
power  and  value  of  Christianity  as  simply 
the  transformation  and  the  making  of  good 
characters  out  of  bad  and  apparently  aban- 
doned men.  Origen  long  ago  declared  that 
the  greater  number  of  those  found  id  the 
churches  are  ''converted  from  a  not  very 
wicked  life,"  rather  than  from  those  "who 
have  committed  the  most  abominable  sins." 
Timothy,  Paul's  "beloved  son  in  the  gospel," 
was  from  infancy  responsive  to  the  highest 
moral  influences.     The  prevailiQg  fact  is  that 


CHEISTL\N  CHARACTER         135 

among  the  really  most  valuable  Christian 
characters — the  men  and  the  women  most 
firmly  grounded  in  the  faith,  most  deeply  ex- 
perienced in  spiritual  things,  in  whose  lives 
there  are  most  perfectly  developed  the  Chris- 
tian graces,  and  who  are  the  most  radiant 
examples  of  settled  trustfulness  of  soul,  peace 
of  mind,  and  of  Christian  fruitfulness,  quahties 
which  best  attest  the  rule  of  the  Spirit  over 
the  life — a  great  majority  of  all  these  have 
not  come  from  the  ranks  of  outbroken  sinful- 
ness, but  are  to  be  numbered  among  those  who 
from  earliest  life  have  been  reared  in  a  healthy 
moral  and  social  environment.  I  can  have  no 
doubt  that  goodness  in  any  life  is  a  Spirit- 
nurtured  growth.  The  fruits  of  the  spiritual 
heritage  are  of  wide  distribution.  It  would 
be  a  moral  tragedy  of  society  were  this  not 
the  fact.  Any  child  born  and  reared  in  Chris- 
tian atmospheres  must,  by  virtue  of  this  very 
fact,  be  forever  different  in  character  and 
quality  from  what  would  be  possible  in  the 
absence  of  such  environment.  Lives  are  made 
better  or  worse  by  virtue  of  good  inheritances. 
If  the  heir  of  such  inheritances  wilKully  sins 
against  his  birthright,  his  perversion  of  char- 
acter thereby  becomes  the  more  treasonable 
and  tragic.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  measure 
in  which  his  life  conforms  to  the  better  ideals 


136        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

of  his  inheritance,  by  so  much  is  he  worthy 
of  approbation.  When  a  mere  lad,  with  as 
yet  no  developed  ability  to  think  my  way 
discriminatingly  through  the  subject,  I  was 
mentally  disturbed  by  a  statement  more  than 
once  made  by  zealous  circuit-riding  pastors,  to 
the  effect  that  a  man  of  moral  life  was  a  far 
greater  obstacle  to  the  Kingdom  than  an 
outbreaking  sinner.  This  kind  of  teaching 
seemed  to  me,  even  then,  like  putting  a  pre- 
mium upon  a  bad  life.  Such  teaching  is  a 
moral  heresy.  Its  assumption  is  thoroughly 
unethical.  The  man  who  from  elect  motives 
leads  an  upright  life  is  far  nearer  the  kingdom 
of  God  than  is  at  all  possible  to  the  profane 
and  abandoned  sinner.  Men  of  high  motives 
should  be  a  common  heritage  to  the  Chris- 
tian community.  Children  trained  in  Christian 
homes  should  by  reason  of  that  very  fact  be 
the  most  valuable  recruits  of  the  Church. 

Second.  To  justly  judge  the  validity  of  a 
work  of  grace  in  the  life  of  the  individual,  due 
regard  must  be  had  to  several  features,  such 
as  environment,  habit,  temperament,  mental 
and  moral  capacity,  of  the  person  concerned. 
There  are  some  characters  in  whom,  when 
apparently  divine  grace  has  wrought  at  its 
best,  there  still  inhere  rugged  and  uncouth 
characteristics  which  seem  inborn  in  the  indi- 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         137 

vidual.  It  does  not  follow  that  some  lives 
in  which  have  really  been  wrought  miracles 
of  grace  will  appear  more,  or  even  as,  perfect 
outwardly  as  do  some  other  lives  which  seem 
to  have  been  quite  fully  shaped  by  natural 
inlieritance,  temperament,  or  acquired  culture. 
Apropos  to  this  subject,  James  makes  a  quo- 
tation from  Emerson  and  then  makes  his  own 
rejoinder.  Emerson  says:  "When  we  see  a 
soul  whose  acts  are  regal,  graceful,  and  pleasant 
as  roses,  we  must  thank  God  that  such  things 
can  be  and  are,  and  not  turn  sourly  on  the 
angel  and  say:  'Crump  is  a  better  man,  with 
his  grunting  resistance  to  all  his  native  devils.'  " 
"True  enough,"  says  James,  "yet  Crump  may 
really  be  the  better  Crump,  for  his  inner  dis- 
cords and  second  birth;  and  your  once-born 
'regal'  character,  though,  indeed,  always  better 
than  poor  Crump,  may  fall  far  short  of  what 
he  indi\adually  might  be  had  he  only  some 
Crump-like  capacity  for  compunction  over  his 
own  pecuhar  diabohsms,  graceful  and  pleasant 
and  invariably  gentlemanly  as  these  may  be." 
The  transforming  grace  of  the  Spirit,  however 
deep  or  wonderful  its  work  in  the  soul,  never 
utterly  obliterates  or  transcends  the  native 
lines  or  limitations  of  individuality.  Some 
men  have  great  capacity,  large  culture,  and 
fine    harmony    of    temperament.      The    Spirit 


138        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

harmonizes  with  these  quahties,  beautifies  them, 
and  lifts  them  into  their  best  expression.  An- 
other person  is  not  built  on  this  scale.  He 
may  suffer  not  only  from  natural  limitations, 
but  from  defects  of  habit.  Even  divine  grace 
can  work  only  on  such  foundations  as  it  finds 
in  the  individual.  But  when  the  man  of  one 
talent,  and  of  crippling  limitations,  is  saved, 
he  is  saved  for  all  he  is  worth.  He  is  saved 
with  a  great  salvation.  To  him  his  spiritual 
conversion  will  always  remain  the  greatest 
fact  in  his  moral  history. 

Third.  In  assessing  the  values  of  Christian 
experience  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  not  all 
subjects  have  a  uniform,  or  a  like  phenomenal, 
experience  either  in  conversion  or  in  the  after 
developments  of  character.  As  a  matter  of 
observation,  men  seemingly  come  into  the 
Christian  life  under  a  great  variety  and  di- 
versity of  phenomenal  expression.  We  have 
already  seen  that  this  presents  no  real  ground 
of  difficulty.  The  religious  motive  appeals  to 
the  deepest  life,  and  is  from  its  very  nature 
adapted,  when  in  full  action,  to  stir  profoundly 
the  emotions. 

This  motive,  when  it  has  a  clear  hearing, 
makes  imperious  demands  upon  the  entire 
personality.  It  is  not  strange  that  in  the 
hour   of   crisis    it   should    prove   an    agitating 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         139 

presence  in  the  entire  field  of  consciousness. 
But  this  emotional  action  will  be  far  more 
pronounced  in  some  cases  than  in  others.  The 
phenomenal  expression  will  depend  much  upon 
the  native  temperament  and  aptitudes  of  the 
individual.  In  some  natures  the  emotions  will 
voice  themselves  like  the  breaking  forth  of  a 
pent  tide.  In  other  cases  the  calm  will  and 
the  introspective  interrogation  will  hold  emo- 
tion in  abeyance,  and,  whatever  happens, 
even  though  the  processes  of  profound  moral 
change  are  going  on  in  the  soul,  the  movement 
is  quiet  and  wanting  in  outward,  or  phenom- 
enal, expression.  It  has  taken  many  spiritual 
workers  a  long  time — and  even  now  the  lesson 
is  not  well  learned — to  make  due  discrimination 
between  what  may  be  only  phenomenal  and 
that  which  is  vitally  essential  in  spiritual  con- 
version. The  essential  thing  is  that  the  soul 
be  in  the  attitude,  and  without  reservation,  of 
complete  self-surrender  to  the  sway  of  the 
Spirit.  It  cannot  even  reach  this  attitude 
without  the  preliminary  aids  of  the  Spirit 
himself.  But  when  this  condition  is  realized, 
the  seeking,  the  soliciting.  Spirit  enters  the 
life  to  work  the  most  momentous  moral  events 
in  the  soul.  This  is  the  supreme  thing.  Are 
the  emotions  stirred .^^  This  is  normal.  But 
if,  without  emotion,  there  is  the  quiet  discern- 


140        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

ment  of  dawn,  the  touch  of  a  new  springtime, 
the  sensing  of  a  new  moral  Hfe,  in  the  soul; 
this  too  is  normal. 

Ignorance  of  spiritual  laws  has  led  to  much 
infelicity  of  spiritual  teaching,  amounting  often 
to  a  quackery  of  method,  in  the  insistence 
that  a  certain  type  of  emotional  experience  is 
essential  as  evidence  of  Christian  conversion. 
Great  numbers  of  the  best  Christians  have 
been  needlessly  troubled  at  this  point.  In- 
sistence upon  this  standard  or  criterion  of 
entrance  upon  the  Christian  life,  has  amounted 
in  many  cases  to  an  infliction  of  cruelty  upon 
most  sincere  seekers  after  the  true  way.  A 
true  psychology  must  declare  this  sort  of 
teaching,  so  far  as  professional  aptitude  is 
concerned,  as  discreditable  as  maladroit  sur- 
gery. 

The  emphasis  of  the  Christian  life  is  to  be 
put  upon  its  ethical  quality.  The  real  Chris- 
tian is  one  who  is  obedient  to  Jesus  Christ. 
He  is  a  doer  rather  than  a  feeler.  It  was 
Christ's  meat  and  drink  to  do  the  will  of  his 
Father  in  heaven.  In  his  final  valuation  of 
his  followers  it  is  the  doer  of  God's  will  whom 
he  approves.  Christ  would  not  leave  Peter 
in  the  reverie  of  a  transfiguration,  but  took 
him  down  into  the  valley  where  devils  were 
to  be  cast  out  of  men.    Whatever  be  the  emo- 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         141 

tional  register,  whether  sustained  excitement  is 
present  or  absent,  the  man  who  has  accepted 
the  mastery  of  Jesus  Christ,  is  one  in  whom 
the  Divine  Spirit  is  developing  the  fruits  of 
righteousness.  There  will  reign  in  his  soul 
the  serenity  of  a  man  at  peace  with  God.  The 
real  need  is  the  mind  which  was  in  Jesus  Christ. 
If  one  have  this  mind,  and  practice  it,  the 
religious  emotions  may  safely  be  left  to  take 
care  of  themselves.  This  man,  as  by  an  un- 
failing gravitation,  is  borne  ever  forward  toward 
a  perfecting  Christian  character. 

Fourth.  The  testimony  of  Christian  charac- 
ter, as  that  also  of  experience,  attains  its 
highest  evidential  values,  not  from  sporadic 
individual  cases,  but  from  the  massed  con- 
sensus of  the  Christian  life.  Christianity  is 
historic.  Its  Kingdom  has  had  a  continuous 
and  increasing  growth  through  the  centuries. 
Its  citizenship,  with  an  unbroken  continuity 
of  thought  and  expression,  has,  through  all 
ages,  spoken  in  one  spiritual  language.  The 
Christian  inspirations  have  uttered  themselves 
among  all  races  and  in  all  generations,  begetting 
everywhere  in  human  hearts  and  characters 
the  same  moral  response.  The  songs  of  Chris- 
tian experience  have,  the  races  over  and  the 
ages  through,  voiced  themselves  as  in  the 
harmonies  of  a  universal  symphony.    Mingled 


142         RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

with  the  individual  consciousness,  now  and 
then,  there  may  have  arisen  phenomena  both 
illusory  and  worthless.  But,  when  all  allowance 
is  made  for  ephemeral  and  dreamlike  illusions 
of  the  occasional  individual,  these  will  not  be 
found  to  impair  in  the  least  either  the  sig- 
nificance or  the  value  of  the  universal  Christian 
experience  and  testimony.  As  to  the  significance 
of  these  there  can  be  no  ignoring  and  no  mis- 
understanding. 

The  phenomena  of  the  Christian  experience, 
and  the  distinctiveness  of  the  Christian  charac- 
ter, are  too  cosmic  to  admit  of  either  historic 
or  philosophic  denial.  In  this  relation,  the 
central  and  dominating  fact  to  be  emphasized 
is  that  the  religious  consciousness  of  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  regulative  norm  of  Christian 
consciousness  for  all  ages  and  for  all  peoples. 
The  Christianity  of  Christ  is  historically  and 
abundantly  demonstrated  to  be  morally  cre- 
ative, transforming,  uplifting,  altruistic,  hope- 
inspiring,  as  no  other,  and  not  all  other,  re- 
ligious faiths.  Christianity,  therefore,  carries 
in  itself  the  prophecy  and  the  pledge  of  its  uni- 
versality. The  future  moral  perfection  of 
mankind  is  to  be  realized  only  by  the  final 
dominance  in  civilization  of  the  Christian 
character. 

Fifth.    We  must  not  confound  the  psychology 


CHRISTIAN  CHARACTER         14S 

of  religious  experience  with  the  ultimate  Cause 
and  Source  of  this  experience.  Psychology  has 
profoundly  searched  the  phenomena  accom- 
panying Christian  conversion  and  the  subse- 
quent development  of  Christian  character,  and 
has  reached  valid  analyses  and  assessments  of 
these  phenomena.  But  this  is  no  more  to 
say  that  psychology  actually  accounts  for,  or 
does  away  with  the  necessity  of,  the  distinctive 
divine  causality  and  action  in  Christian  con- 
version than  that  the  botanist  who  classifies 
plants  and  analyzes  their  structures  thereby 
explains  the  vital  principle  of  their  develop- 
ment. Psychology  is  a  great  clarifier  of  knowl- 
edge. It  exposes  delusions  and  eliminates  false 
factors  of  faith.  It  reduces  the  processes  of 
experience  on  their  human  side  to  rational 
clearness  and  credibility.  It  so  philosophically 
illuminates  our  emotional  experiences  as  to 
leave  no  intelligent  excuse  for  either  juggling 
with,  or  giving  false  interpretation  to,  these 
experiences.  God  has  given  to  the  human  soul 
its  distinct  constitution.  If  the  soul  is  a  harp, 
God's  play  upon  this  instrument  must  move 
within  the  limits  of  its  laws.  It  is  the  legit- 
imate function  of  psychology  to  study  and  to 
know  the  laws  and  possibilities  of  the  instru- 
ment. But  when  the  great  Player  brings 
forth   the   harmonies   of   celestial   music,   psy- 


144         RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

chology  has  no  right  to  forget  that  the  Player 
is  God.i 


^  The  mode  of  treatment  in  this  chapter  has  developed  a 
considerable  variety  of  statement.  To  facilitate  review,  I 
have  thought  it  well  to  indicate  the  topics  of  the  chapter  in 
the  order  of  their  treatment,  as  follows: 

(1)  The  term  "character,"  its  historic  significance. 
(2)  Christian  character  the  result  of  a  Divine  process  in  the 
soul.  (3)  Biblical  ideals  of  character.  (4)  The  general  an- 
swer of  history  as  to  the  validity  of  these  ideals.  (5)  Chris- 
tians were  persecuted  because  of  their  exceptional  morals. 
(6)  Both  historian  and  philosopher  now  freely  acknowledge 
the  validity  of  both  the  Christian  conversion  and  the  Chris- 
tian character.  (7)  Testimony  of  great  spiritual  periods  in 
the  Church,  such  as  the  Reformation  and  the  Wesleyan 
Revival.  (8)  In  a  measured  survey  of  the  phenomena  of 
Christian  conversion  and  the  subsequent  development  of 
Christian  character,  several  important  facts  need  to  be  care- 
fully guarded  and  duly  emphasized: 

(a)  It  would  not  only  be  an  inadequate,  but  a  thoroughly 
false,  view  to  confine  the  morally  transforming  and  uplifting 
power  of  Christianity  to  simply  bad  characters. 

(6)  In  the  attempt  to  measure  the  apparent  effects  of 
divine  grace  upon  character,  due  regard  must  be  had  to  the 
qualities  of  the  individual  concerned:  such  as  his  heredity, 
temperament,  habit,  mental  and  moral  capacity,  etc. 

(c)  Not  all  subjects  of  Christian  conversion  have  a  uni- 
form, or  a  like  phenomenal,  experience.  Emotional  phe- 
nomena furnish  no  valid  criterion  as  to  the  genuineness  of  a 
work  of  grace  in  character. 

(d)  The  testimony  of  the  individual  may  not  necessarily 
be  accepted  as  a  final  authority  for  the  spiritual  life.  The 
value  of  such  testimony  must  finally  be  measured  by  its 
agreement  or  disagreement  with  the  general  consensus  of 
Christian  experience. 

(e)  While  it  is  the  proper  function  of  psychology  to  inves- 
tigate and  assess  the  mental  and  emotional  processes  at- 
tendant upon  Christian  experience,  psychology,  in  no  sense, 
either  substitutes  or  accounts  for  the  Cause  and  Source  of 
Christian  experience  itself. 


VI 

SPIRITUAL  FRUITS 


But  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace,  longsuf- 
fering,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meekness,  temperance: 
against  such  there  is  no  law. — Galatians  5.  22,  23. 

We  ourselves  have  observed  crowded  together  in  one  day, 
some  suffering  decapitation,  some  of  the  torments  of  flames; 
so  that  the  murderous  weapon  was  completely  blunted,  and 
the  executioners  themselves,  wearied  with  slaughter,  were 
obliged  to  relieve  one  another.  Then  we  were  witnesses  of 
the  truly  divine  energy  of  those  that  believed  in  the  Christ 
of  God.  They  received  the  final  sentence  of  death  with 
gladness  and  exultation,  so  far  as  even  to  sing  and  to  send 
up  hymns  of  praise  and  thanksgiving  until  they  breathed 
their  last. — E  us  eh  his. 

Joy  is  more  conspicuous  in  Christianity  than  in  any  other 
religion,  and  in  the  Bible  than  in  any  other  literature. 
Psychologically,  joy  is  the  index  of  health,  resulting  from 
the  adequate  engagement  and  the  vigorous  and  harmonious 
exercise  of  the  powers;  it  is  the  sign  that  the  soul  has  found 
its  object. — Dr.   G.   G.   Findlay. 

One  of  the  last  places  in  the  world  to  be  regarded  as  a 
holiday  resort  was  surely  the  noisome  den  at  Bedford  in 
which  Bunyan  was  confined.  But  there  was  rarest  holiday- 
making  within.  Not  in  king's  palace,  nor  amid  the  noblest 
scenery  of  our  isles,  was  there  such  exultation  of  soul,  such 
vision  of  beauty,  such  sense  of  life  and  freedom  as  filled  the 
soul  of  the  lonely  prisoner  as  there  rose  before  him  in  his 
dungeon  the  successive  scenes  of  that  great  conception  which 
was  to  make  him  immortal.  To  stand  on  the  Delectable 
Mountains  was  better  than  to  climb  the  Jungfrau.  Great- 
heart,  Christian,  and  Faithful  formed  finer  society  than  the 
wits  of  the  coffee-houses.  To  have  looked  through  the  gates 
of  the  New  Jerusalem  made  cheap  the  splendors  of  Paris  or 
Rome. — /.    Brierley. 

With  an  eye  made  quiet  by  the  power 
Of  harmony,  and  the  deep  power  of  joy, 
We  see  into  the  life  of  things. 

— Wordsworth. 


CHAPTER  VI 

SPIRITUAL  FRUITS 

The  Gospel,  as  announced  by  the  angel 
messengers,  was  a  heralding  of  "Glad  tidings 
of  great  joy."  Joy  is  one  of  the  designated 
fruits  of  the  Spirit.  Joy  and  fortitude  are  not 
synonyms.  But  the  qualities  which  they  ex- 
press keep  close  company  with  each  other. 
Joy  and  fortitude  are  alike  direct  products  of 
Christian  grace.  Saint  Paul  was  a  man  of 
superb  fortitude.  He  was  equally  the  apostle 
of  joy.  Few  pictures  are  more  impressive  than 
that  of  Paul  in  prison  voicing  in  his  letter  to 
the  Philippians  the  notes  of  highest  joy,  and 
at  the  same  time  calmly,  heroically,  awaiting 
his  own  death  at  the  hands  of  the  executioner. 
A  treatise  of  unique  character,  yet  most  rich 
in  substance,  is  furnished  in  the  WTitings  of 
the  New  Testament  on  the  subject  of  Christian 
joy.  In  numerous  passages,  and  representing 
a  great  variety  of  conditions,  there  is  pictured 
the  rise  of  this  joy  in  the  heart.  This  is  em- 
phasized especially  of  those  who  have  come 
newly  into  the  consciousness  of  spiritual 
discipleship. 

147 


148        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

Christ,  foretelling  this  state,  declares  that 
"the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  treasure 
hid  in  a  field;  the  which  when  a  man  hath 
found,  he  hideth,  and  for  joy  thereof  goeth 
and  selleth  all  that  he  hath,  and  buyeth  that 
field."  A  scene  following  the  Pentecostal  re- 
vival represents  the  converts  as  meeting  daily 
with  one  accord  in  the  temple,  breaking  bread 
from  house  to  house,  and  eating  their  meal 
with  gladness  and  singleness  of  heart.  The 
Thessalonian  Christians,  though  in  much  afflic- 
tion, received  the  word  with  joy  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  Love,  joy,  and  peace  are  pictured  as 
inseparable  graces  wrought  by  the  Spirit  in 
the  life  of  the  believer.  But  hardly,  if  any, 
less  emphasis  is  placed  in  the  New  Testament 
on  the  spirit  of  heroic  fortitude  which  char- 
acterized the  subjects  of  the  Christian  life. 
The  path  of  the  early  Christian  was  not  easy. 
He  had  to  endure  hardness  as  a  true  soldier 
of  Jesus  Christ.  The  scene  of  Paul  and  Silas 
at  Philippi,  arrested,  scourged  in  the  market- 
place, their  backs  lacerated  by  the  thongs, 
thrust  into  prison,  their  feet  made  fast  in  the 
stocks,  and  yet  at  midnight  singing  praises 
unto  God,  is  one  to  challenge  the  vision  of  an 
artist.  Saint  Peter,  addressing  certain  Chris- 
tians in  a  period  of  tribulation,  a  period  that 
tried  their  faith  so  as  by  fire,  speaks  of  the 


SPIRITUAL  FRUITS  149 

constancy  of  their  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  "Whom 
having  not  seen,"  he  says,  "ye  love;  in  whom, 
though  now  ye  see  him  not,  yet  beheving,  ye 
rejoice  with  joy  unspeakable  and  full  of  glory." 
Thus  it  would  seem  that  joy  and  fortitude, 
with  the  entire  company  of  kindred  graces, 
held  triumphant  place  in  the  hearts  of  these 
early  New  Testament  Christians. 

If,  however,  we  were  confined  to  the  early 
Church  for  signal  experiences  in  the  Christian 
life  of  the  high  graces  of  joy,  fortitude,  faith, 
hope,  we  might  be  forced  to  conclude  that 
Christianity  itself  was  little  more  than  a  pass- 
ing phenomenon  in  the  world's  history.  Chris- 
tian experience  in  every  age  has  abundantly 
evidenced,  and,  it  may  be  measuredly  said,  in 
a  way  nowhere  else  known,  those  invincible 
qualities  of  soul  which  are  classed  as  the  dis- 
tinctive fruits  of  the  Spirit. 

As  for  fortitude,  aside  from  the  inspirations 
of  some  lofty  religious  faith,  it  was  perhaps 
never  more  perfectly  displayed  than  by  the 
ancient  Stoics.  The  school  of  Stoicism,  founded 
by  Zeno  near  the  close  of  the  fourth  century 
B.  C,  wielded  great  influence  in  the  classical 
world,  for  several  hundred  years.  This  school, 
while  pagan  in  character,  enjoined  a  high 
morality.  It  developed  a  somewhat  distinctive 
and  lofty  conception  of  God,  but  was  essen- 


150        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

tially  fatalistic  in  its  philosophy.  It  enrolled 
among  its  adherents  large  numbers  of  reflective 
minds  who  felt  the  need  of  acquiring  a  philo- 
sophic calm  in  the  midst  of  nature's  inexorable 
environment.  In  a  world  where  "Nature  is 
red  in  tooth  and  claw,"  and  where,  at  best, 
man  is  but  the  sport  of  the  fates,  himself 
weak  and  helpless  in  the  presence  of  the  in- 
evitable, it  was  felt  to  be  of  religious  value 
that  he  should  secure  for  himself  a  brave, 
calm,  enduring,  and  resigned  spirit.  It  was 
a  saying  of  Marcus  Aurelius:  "Either  the  gods 
have  no  power,  or  they  have  power.  If  they 
have  not,  why  pray.^  If  they  have,  why  not 
pray  for  deliverance  from  the  fear,  or  the 
desire,  or  the  pain,  which  the  thing  causes, 
rather  than  for  the  withholding  or  the  giving 
of  the  particular  thing.'^  For  certainly,  if  they 
can  cooperate  with  men,  it  is  for  these  very 
purposes  they  can  cooperate." 

In  the  days  of  the  later  Stoicism,  among 
its  most  illustrious  representatives  in  Rome 
were  Seneca,  Epictetus,  and  Marcus  Aurelius. 
Seneca  was  a  foremost  philosopher;  Epictetus 
was  born  a  slave,  but  a  genius;  Marcus  Aurelius 
was  emperor.  These  men  reached  the  highest 
levels  of  natural  morality  and  heroism.  They 
developed  many  traits  and  ideals  of  character 
which    must    forever    be    outstanding    in    the 


SPIRITUAL  FRUITS  151 

Christian  life.  It  is  interesting  in  this  con- 
nection to  note  that  Bishop  Bashford,  in  his 
recent  great  work  on  China,  classes  Marcus 
Aurelius  and  Epictetus  along  with  Moses, 
Isaiah,  and  Jeremiah,  as  men  each  of  whom, 
perhaps  unwittingly  but  no  less  really,  accepted 
his  cross  and  followed  the  light  which  God 
gave  him.  However,  it  must  be  said  of 
Stoicism,  even  at  its  best,  that  it  never  reached 
the  high  moral  plane  of  the  Christian  faith. 
It  never  acquired  the  secret  of  that  unyielding 
fortitude  which  has  borne  multitudes  of  humble 
Christians  in  buoyant  triumph  along  the 
gauntleted  path  of  most  inconceivably  dread- 
ful and  tragic  experiences.  Stoicism  at  its 
highest  level  always  made  room  for  suicide 
as  a  door  of  retreat  from  seemingly  unendur- 
able ills.  This  was  the  door  through  which 
Seneca  finally  elected  exit  from  the  sorrows 
of  his  own  existence.  The  Christian  ideal 
has  never  for  one  moment  tolerated  this  method 
of  retreat.  Stoicism,  whatever  its  attainment 
of  philosophic  calm,  was  never  joyful,  never 
exuberant,  in  spirit.  If  Stoicism  was  a  re- 
ligion, it  did  not  voice  itself  in  song.  It  has 
been  said  that  "Epictetus  announces  a  hymn 
to  Zeus,  but  he  never  starts  the  tune." 

There  has,  upon  the  other    hand,   been    no 
period   of   stress,   however   dire,   in    Christian 


152        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

history  which  was  not  eflflorescent  with  tri- 
umphant song.  The  Christians,  even  in  perse- 
cution, were  the  happiest  people  of  their  day. 
The  insulBSciency  of  the  most  perfect  fortitude 
of  Stoicism  as  contrasted  with  the  Christian 
type  is  clearly  recognized  and  pointed  out  by 
William  James.  He  says:  "Occasionally,  it  is 
true,  the  Stoic  rises  to  something  like  a  Chris- 
tian warmth  of  sentiment,  as  in  the  often 
quoted  passage  from  Marcus  Aurelius: 

"Everything  harmonizes  with  me  which  is  har- 
monious to  thee,  O  Universe.  Nothing  for  me  is 
too  early  or  too  late,  which  is  in  due  time  for  thee. 
Everything  is  fruit  to  me  which  thy  seasons  bring, 
O  Nature:  from  thee  are  all  things,  in  thee  are  all 
things,  to  thee  all  things  return.  The  poet  says. 
Dear  City  of  Cecrops;  and  wilt  thou  not  say,  Dear 
City  of  Zeus? 

But  compare  even  as  devout  a  passage  as  this 
with  a  genuine  Christian  outpouring,  and  it 
seems  a  little  cold.  Turn,  for  instance,  to  the 
Imitation  of  Christ: 

"Lord,  thou  knowest  what  is  best;  let  this  or  that 
be  as  thou  wilt.  Give  what  thou  wilt,  so  much  as 
thou  wilt,  when  thou  wilt.  Do  with  me  as  thou 
knowest  best,  and  as  shall  be  most  to  thine  honor. 
Place  me  where  thou  wilt,  and  freely  work  thy 
will  with  me  in  all  things.  .  .  .  when  could  it  be 
evil  when  thou  art  near?  I  had  rather  be  poor 
for  thy  sake  than  rich  without  thee.  I  choose 
rather  to  be  a  pilgrim  upon  the  earth  with  thee. 


SPIRITUAL  FRUITS  153 

than  without  thee  to  possess  heaven.  Where  thou 
art,  there  is  heaven;  and  where  thou  art  not,  behold 
there  death  and  hell.'* 

What  the  moralist  endures  by  a  tense  effort 
of  volition,  the  Christian  easily  spurns  under 
the  action  of  high  religious  emotion.  "The 
moralist  must  hold  his  breath  and  keep  his 
muscles  tense;  and  so  long  as  this  athletic 
attitude  is  possible,  all  goes  well — morality 
suffices.  But  the  athletic  attitude  tends  ever 
to  break  down,  and  it  inevitably  does  break 
down  even  in  the  most  stalwart  when  the 
organism  begins  to  decay,  or  when  morbid 
fears  invade  the  mind.  To  suggest  personal 
will  and  effort  to  one  all  sicklied  o'er  with  a 
sense  of  irremediable  impotence  is  to  suggest 
the  most  impossible  of  things." 

"There  is  a  state  of  mind  known  to  religious 
men,  hut  to  no  others,  in  which  the  will  to 
assert  ourselves  and  hold  our  own  has  been 
displaced  by  a  willingness  to  close  our  mouths 
and  be  as  nothing  in  the  floods  and  water- 
spouts of  God.  In  this  state  of  mind  what 
we  most  dreaded  has  become  the  habitation 
of  our  safety,  and  the  hour  of  our  moral  death 
has  turned  into  our  spiritual  birthday.  The 
time  for  tension  in  our  soul  is  over,  and  that 
of  happy  relaxation,  of  calm,  deep  breathing, 
of    an    eternal    present,    with    no    despondent 


154        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

future  to  be  anxious  about,  has  arrived.  Fear 
is  not  held  in  abeyance  as  it  is  in  mere  moral- 
ity. It  is  positively  expunged  and  washed 
away."  "Religious  feeling  is  thus  an  absolute 
addition  to  the  subject's  range  of  life.  It  gives 
him  a  new  sphere  of  power.  When  the  out- 
ward battle  is  lost,  and  the  outer  world  dis- 
owns him,  it  redeems  and  vivifies  an  interior 
world  which  otherwise  would  be  an  empty 
waste — this  sort  of  happiness  in  the  absolute 
and  everlasting  is  what  we  find  nowhere  but 
in  religion.  ...  If  you  ask  how  religion  thus 
falls  on  the  thorns  and  faces  death,  and  in  the 
very  act  annuls  annihilation,  I  cannot  explain 
the  matter,  for  it  is  religion's  secret,  and  to 
understand  it  you  must  yourself  have  been 
a  religious  man  of  the  extremer  type." 

Explain  it  as  we  may,  a  patient,  buoyant, 
and  exultant  fortitude,  a  kind  nowhere  else 
fully  matched,  has  characterized  the  highest 
Christian  experiences  in  all  the  ages.  The 
annals  of  martyrdom  abound  in  instances 
where  Christian  fortitude  has  shown  itself 
invincible  and  even  joyous  in  the  face  of  the 
most  ingenious  tortures  and  cruelties  possible 
of  infliction.  When  John  Huss  was  bound  to 
the  stake,  and  the  fagots  were  piled  ready 
for  the  torch,  the  Duke  of  Bavaria  exhorted 
him  to  be  yet  mindful  of  his  salvation,  and 


SPIRITUAL  FRUITS  155 

renounce  his  errors.  Huss  replied:  "What 
error  should  I  renounce  when  I  know  myself 
guilty  of  none?  For  this  was  the  principal 
end  and  purpose  of  my  doctrine,  that  I  might 
teach  all  repentance  and  remission  of  sins, 
according  to  the  verity  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ:  wherefore  with  a  cheerful  mind  and 
courage  I  am  here  ready  to  suffer  death." 

Ridley  and  Latimer  were  martyred  together. 
When  the  lighted  torch  was  laid  at  Ridley's 
feet,  Latimer  said:  "Be  of  good  comfort.  Master 
Ridley,  and  play  the  man.  We  shall  this  day 
light  such  a  candle,  by  God's  grace,  in  England, 
as  I  trust  shall  never  be  put  out."  There  is 
no  need  to  multiply  testimony  from  scenes  of 
martyrdom.  Those  who  have  invincibly  died 
for  their  faith  are  innumerable.  They  arise 
in  history  as  a  great  cloud  of  witnesses.  No 
type  of  martyrs  ever  displayed  a  more  in- 
vincible fortitude  than  did  the  Chinese  Chris- 
tians who  within  the  memory  of  this  generation 
perished  in  great  numbers  in  the  Boxer 
Rebellion. 

Miss  Luella  Miner,  in  her  China's  Book  of 
Martyrs,  relates  instances  of  Christian  heroism 
so  thrilling  as  to  stir  the  very  blood: 

Mrs.  Yang  and  her  two  httle  girls  were  captured 
by  the  Boxers  and  carried  to  a  temple.  She  was 
urged  to  renounce  her  faith  and  worship  the  idols. 


156        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

Upon  her  prompt  refusal  she  and  her  helpless 
children  were  slain.  A  Chinese  girl  was  commanded 
to  burn  incense  to  the  gods.  She  refused,  saying: 
**I  cannot  burn  incense,  for  I  believe  in  Jesus.  I 
am  not  afraid,  even  though  you  kill  me,  for  I  shall 
go  straight  to  my  heavenly  Father."  Hardly  had 
she  ceased  speaking  before  the  sword  descended. 
One  of  the  preachers,  Ch'en  Ta-yung,  with  his 
wife  and  two  children  were  hacked  to  pieces  by  the 
infuriated  Boxers.  The  mother's  last  words  were, 
"We  will  all  go  to  our  heavenly  Father  together."^ 

The  voice  of  John  Bunyan,  even  in  Bedford 
jail,  was  insuppressible.  He  was  offered  his 
liberty  if  he  would  consent  to  cease  preaching. 
His  reply  was:  "Release  me  to-day,  and  I 
will  preach  to-morrow."  John  Nelson,  one  of 
Wesley's  early  helpers,  was  imprisoned  in  a 
horrible  dungeon  located  under  a  slaughter  pen. 
He  says,  "W^en  I  came  into  the  dungeon, 
that  stank  worse  than  a  hog-sty  by  reason  of 
the  blood  and  filth  that  ran  into  it  from  the 
butchers  who  killed  over  it,  my  soul  was  so 
filled  with  the  love  of  God  that  it  was  a  par- 
adise to  me."  John  Woolman,  the  Indian 
missionary,  tells  us  that  one  night,  far  away 
from  tent  or  habitation,  unable  to  kindle  a 
fire  because  of  the  falling  rain,  he  sat  through 
the  long  hours  under  a  bush  and  "found  his 
soul  filled  with  comfort  as  he  meditated  upon 

^  Modern  Messages  from  Great  Hymns,  by  Robert  Elmer 
Smith,  pp.  152-153. 


SPIRITUAL  FRUITS  157 

God."  Tertullian  lived  in  the  heated  periods 
of  Roman  persecution.  He  not  only  witnessed 
many  scenes  of  Christian  martyrdom,  but  he 
lived  under  the  constant  menace  of  its  inflic- 
tion upon  himself.  He  was  a  brilliant  lawyer, 
a  rhetorician.  His  professional  possibilities  in 
civil  life  were  brilliant.  But  he  sacrificed  his 
professional  career,  with  all  its  promise,  when 
he  became  a  Christian.  In  times  that  tried 
men's  souls,  when  the  arena  was  red  with 
martyrdom,  when  he  could  but  know  himself 
as  a  signal  target  for  destruction,  Tertullian 
walked  his  path  of  Christian  duty  with  the 
loyalty  and  firmness  of  a  soldier. 

In  mentioning  the  soldier,  I  am  reminded 
that  Christian  fortitude  and  the  fortitude  of 
the  soldier  are  not  necessarily  from  the  same 
source.  Nor,  however  akin,  are  they  the  same 
in  their  motives  of  manifestation.  The  forti- 
tude of  the  soldier  may  be  most  admirable. 
It  has  been  exhibited  on  innumerable  fields 
of  most  trying  strife,  and  has  held  itself  in 
bravest  poise  in  defeat  as  well  as  in  victory. 
Among  the  wonderful  qualities  of  human  nature 
which  have  come  to  transfiguring  expression 
amid  the  maddening  ravages  of  the  present 
European  war,  none  can  be  more  wonderful 
than  that  fortitude  which  has  held  multitudes 
of  soldiers  in  all  the  armies  brave  and  firm 


158        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

under  conditions  which  would  seem  to  defy 
all  human  endurance.  Who  shall  say  that 
patriotism  is  not  a  divine  endowment?  It  is 
certainly  the  mother  of  heroisms  that  seem 
well-nigh  preternatural. 

But  Christian  fortitude,  whatever  the  orig- 
inal endowment,  receives  its  reenforcements 
from  moral  sources.  "Men  have  learned  from 
Christ  how  to  find  joy  in  pain;  how  to  be 
happy  when  suffering  and  dying."  And  so 
it  has  been  a  common  expression  of  the  saintly 
life  that  men  have  manifested  a  phenomenal 
fortitude,  a  spirit  of  patience  and  of  cheerful 
endurance,  amid  what  would  appear  the  most 
forbidding  allotments  of  life.  The  saint  has 
shown  a  capacity  for  sublime  cheerfulness,  for 
unconquerable  hope,  even  amid  conditions  of 
adversity  and  illness,  of  thwarted  hopes,  of 
defeated  ambitions,  of  unjust  imprisonments, 
on  lonely  and  trying  pathways  of  duty  in  the 
wilderness  and  in  the  desert — pathways  that 
have  been  trodden  by  the  world's  superlative 
heroes,  pathways  of  sacrificial  service  for  hu- 
manity, pathways  leading  to  dungeon  portals, 
to  the  stake,  to  the  world's  Calvar^^s — these 
have  all  been  beaten  hard  by  pilgrims  bent  on 
holy  quest,  and  whose  fortitude  has  been  in- 
breathed from  sources  higher  than  themselves. 

The    Christian    life,    whatever    its    material 


SPIRITUAL  FRUITS  159 

environment,  is  essentially  a  joyful  life.  Christ 
said  to  his  disciples,  "These  things  have  I 
spoken  unto  you,  that  my  joy  might  remain 
in  you,  and  that  your  joy  might  be  full."  It 
is  an  observation  of  widest  Christian  experience 
that  the  soul  newly  born  into  the  spiritual  life 
seeks  to  give  expression  to  its  unutterable 
bliss  in  some  note  of  praise.  The  inspirations 
of  this  new-found  bliss  have,  all  along  the 
ages,  voiced  themselves  in  great  hymns. 

Charles  Wesley  first  entered  into  the  con- 
scious and  great  peace  of  the  believer  on 
Whit  Sunday,  May  21,  1738.  On  the  follow- 
ing Tuesday  at  nine  in  the  morning,  he  began 
a  hymn  upon  his  conversion  in  which  occurs 
the  verse: 

O  how  shall  I  the  goodness  tell. 

Father,  which  thou  to  me  hast  showed? 

That  I,  a  child  of  wrath  and  hell, 
I  should  be  called  a  child  of  God, 

Should  know,  should  feel  my  sins  forgiven, 

Blest  with  this  antepast  of  heaven ! 

On  the  following  day,  John  Wesley,  having 
come  into  a  like  experience,  was  brought  by 
a  troop  of  friends  to  the  room  of  his  brother, 
where  together  they  sang  this  hymn  with 
great  joy,  and  parted  with  prayer.  This 
hymn  has  been  very  properly  designated  as 
the  "Birth-song  of  the  Evangelical  Revival." 


160        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

Charles  Wesley's  spiritual  joy  was  a  perpetual 
glow  in  his  soul.  Under  its  inspirations  he 
wrote  a  great  wealth  of  hymns  based  on  high- 
est spiritual  experiences.  I  quote  one  more 
from  his  pen.  It  is  hymn  311  in  the  Methodist 
Hymnal : 

O  how  happy  are  they, 

Who  the  Saviour  obey, 
And  have  laid  up  their  treasures  above! 

Tongue  can  never  express 

The  sweet  comfort  and  peace 
Of  a  soul  in  its  earliest  love. 


That  sweet  comfort  was  mine. 

When  the  favor  divine 
I  first  found  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb; 

When  my  heart  first  believed, 

What  a  joy  I  received. 
What  a  heaven  in  Jesus*s  name ! 


'Twas  a  heaven  below 

My  Redeemer  to  know, 
And  the  angels  could  do  nothing  more, 

Than  to  fall  at  his  feet, 

And  the  story  repeat. 
And  the  Lover  of  sinners  adore. 


Jesus  all  the  day  long 
Was  my  joy  and  my  song, 

O  that  all  his  salvation  might  see! 
"He  hath  loved  me,"  I  cried, 
"He  hath  suffered  and  died, 

To  redeem  a  poor  rebel  like  me." 


SPIRITUAL  FRUITS  161 

0  the  rapturous  height 
Of  that  holy  delight 

Which  I  felt  in  the  life-giving  blood! 
Of  my  Saviour  possessed, 

1  was  perfectly  blessed, 

As  if  filled  with  the  fulness  of  God. 


PhiKp  Doddridge  celebrated  his  own  con- 
version in  a  hymn  which  will  be  long  sung  in 
the  Church  at  large  as  expressing  the  new- 
found joy  of  the  Christian  convert.  The 
opening  verse  and  the  refrain  of  this  hymn 
are  as  follows: 

O  happy  day,  that  fixed  my  choice 
On  thee,  my  Saviour  and  my  God! 

Well  may  this  glowing  heart  rejoice. 
And  tell  its  raptures  all  abroad. 
Happy  day,  happy  day. 

When  Jesus  washed  my  sins  away: 

He  taught  me  how  to  watch  and  pray. 

And  live  rejoicing  every  day. 

Happy  day,  happy  day. 

When  Jesus  washed  my  sins  away. 

Far  more  space  than  can  be  here  afforded 
could  easily  be  taken  in  quoting  hymns  of  joy,  of 
faith,  of  hope,  of  fortitude,  of  triumph,  exultant 
hymns  that  will  be  sung  as  long  as  the  Chris- 
tian ages  last.  The  confident  prophecies  of 
Christian  immortality  have  uttered  themselves 
in  the  great  hymns  of  the  Church.  When  Dr. 
Ray  Palmer  lay  dying,  those  who  bent  over 


162        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

him  heard  him  repeating  the  last  verse  of  his 

own  beautiful  hymn: 

"When  death  these  mortal  eyes  shall  seal. 
And  still  this  throbbing  heart, 
The  rending  vail  shall  thee  reveal. 
All-glorious  as  thou  art." 

The  great  hymns  evidence  the  continuous- 
ness  of  the  divine  inspirations  in  the  human 
soul.  They  are  the  inspired  transcriptions  of 
God's  revelations  of  himself  to  elect  men  who 
have  pursued  him  to  the  very  higher  levels 
of  the  spiritual  life.  On  mounts  of  transfigura- 
tion and  of  immortal  vision,  God  is  still  speak- 
ing to  his  own. 

In  this  chapter  joy  and  fortitude  have  been 
much  dwelt  upon  as  typical  fruits  of  the  Spirit. 
We  must  remember,  however,  that  in  the 
synthesis  of  the  Christian  life  all  the  graces 
of  the  Spirit  are  of  concurrent  and  mutually 
supportive  function.  Faith,  Hope,  Meekness, 
Temperance,  whatsoever  there  is  of  Good  Re- 
port, and  whatsoever  there  is  that  is  of  Virtue 
— these  all,  in  the  symmetrical  ministries  of 
grace,  blend  in  the  interplay  of  the  soul's  life. 
Faith  in  the  immortal  and  heavenly  life  has 
contributed  vastly  to  the  fortitude  of  the 
Christian  believer.  The  amazing  firmness  of 
the  early  martyrs  was  attributed  by  Celsus 
and  other  pagan  writers  to  what  was  termed 


SPIRITUAL  FRUITS  163 

their  "superstitious"  belief  in  immortality. 
Christ  himself  taught  that  we  are  not  to  fear 
man,  who,  at  his  worst,  can  only  destroy  the 
body,  but,  rather,  fear  God,  who  can  destroy 
both  soul  and  body  in  hell. 

Much  modern  emphasis  is  laid  upon  the 
"eternal  life"  as  a  thing  of  quality  rather  than 
of  duration.  There  is  obviously  a  very  vital 
emphasis  to  be  laid  upon  the  quality  feature 
of  the  immortal  life.  But  all  true  Christian 
teaching  has  always  stressed  this  emphasis. 
Quality  and  endlessness  have  both  been  at 
the  center  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  immor- 
tality. Neither  conception  is  complete  without 
the  other.  The  Christian,  if  in  full  possession 
of  his  faith,  is  one  who  habitually  seeks  in 
himself  God-likeness.  He  lives  also  in  this 
life  as  one  who  watchfully  plans  for  an  infinite 
and  enduring  future.  In  his  thought  the 
highest  sanity  calls  for  the  subordination  of 
present  and  fleeting  interests  to  the  enduring 
values  of  the  endless  life.  In  the  most  worthy 
sense  of  the  term,  a  man  could  not  be  a  Chris- 
tian and  so  live  as  to  be  forgetful  of  the  vital 
relations  which  his  present  conduct  may  sus- 
tain to  his  unending  destiny.  If  righteousness, 
truth,  honesty,  temperance,  chastity,  brotherly 
love,  charity,  sacrificial  service  for  the  love  of 
God — if    these,    and    kindred    qualities,    must 


164        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

enter  into  a  true  preparation  of  character  for 
the  life  to  come,  then,  at  the  denial  of  all 
opposing  things,  one  must  plan,  at  whatever 
cost,  and,  if  needs  be,  at  the  price  of  severest 
discipline  and  self-denial,  to  make  himself 
rich  in  these  qualities.  The  scheme  of  the 
Christian  life,  as  that  of  no  other  life,  calls 
for  largest  practical  reckoning  with  the  motives 
of  eternity.  These  motives,  if  heeded,  will 
put  a  man's  feet  upon  the  highest  pathways 
for  this  present  life.  They  will  hold  him  to 
a  balancing  vision  of  things  eternal.  It  was 
this  vision  which  gave  invincible  courage  to 
the  Christian  martyrs.  It  was  this  which 
enabled  Saint  Paul,  in  a  career  of  incredible 
privation  and  suffering,  to  say:  "For  our  light 
affliction,  which  is  but  for  a  moment,  worketh 
for  us  a  far  more  exceeding  and  eternal  weight 
of  glory."  It  is  this  vision  which  has  steadied 
untold  thousands  in  sickness,  in  poverty,  in 
sorrow.  They  too  have  thought  of  the  exceed- 
ing rewards  of  the  heavenly  life:  and  they 
have  been  patient,  heroic,  even  joyful  all 
along  the  difficult  pathways  of  their  earthly 
allotment. 

It  may  be  that  some,  under  the  high  stress 
of  conviction,  have  too  little  prized  the  values 
of  earthly  good.  A  mistake  is  possible  even 
in  this  direction.    God  intends  the  best  things 


SPIRITUAL  FRUITS  165 

of  this  world  for  his  own  people.  "Godliness 
is  profitable  unto  all  things,  having  promise 
of  the  life  that  now  is,  and  of  that  which  is 
to  come."  This  mistake,  however  if  ever 
made,  is  not  common.  Professing  Christians  of 
the  present  age  would  seem  far  more  in  danger 
of  being  overcome  by  the  world's  passing 
allurements  than  they  are  to  make  the  mistake 
of  not  placing  proper  values  upon  temporal 
good.  A  gold  coin  can  be  pressed  so  close 
as  to  shut  the  entire  heavens  from  the  vision 
of  the  eye.  Christian  faith  is  far-sighted.  As 
the  mariner  guides  his  ship  on  trackless  seas 
by  the  light  of  distant  stars,  so  Christian 
destiny  must  be  guided  by  the  beacons  of 
eternity.  To-morrow  we  leave  earth  forever 
behind  us.  Then  that  which  is  before  us, 
that  alone,  will  be  of  supreme  moment.  Christ 
taught  clearly  the  necessity  of  deliberate  fore- 
cast, the  necessity  of  building  upon  sure  founda- 
tions, if  men  would  enter  into  life. 


VII 
CHRISTIAN  SERVICE 


The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  Jehovah  is  upon  me, 

Because  Jehovah  hath  anointed  me  to  proclaim  glad  tidings 

to  the  poor; 
He  hath  sent  me  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted, 
To  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives, 
And  the  bursting  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound; 
To  proclaim  the  year  of  Jehovah's   favor, 
And  the  day  of  vengeance  of  our  God. 

If  God  could  evolve  man  and  civilization  from  a  world 
of  reptiles,  surely  it  will  be  a  lesser  task  to  evolve  an  earthly 
paradise  from  the  world  that  is.  Man's  measureless  progress 
in  the  past  is  a  pledge  of  future  progress. 

"Till  upon  earth's  grateful  sod 
Rests  the  city  of  our  God." 

— Dr.  Josiah  Strong. 

The  future  is  lighted  for  us  with  the  radiant  colors  of 
hope.  Strife  and  sorrow  shall  disappear.  Peace  and  love 
shall  reign  supreme.  The  dream  of  poets,  the  lesson  of 
priest  and  prophet,  the  inspiration  of  the  great  musician,  is 
confirmed  in  the  light  of  modern  knowledge;  and,  as  we 
gird  ourselves  for  the  work  of  life  we  may  look  forward  to 
the  time  when  in  the  truest  sense  the  kingdoms  of  this  world 
shall  become  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  and  he  shall  reign  for- 
ever and  ever.  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords. 

— Professor  John  Fiske. 

If  the  conception  of  the  kingdom  of  God  came  to  be  the 
working  faith  of  our  modern  world,  every  business  man 
would  confront  the  question  whether  his  business  as  a  total, 
in  the  goods  it  turns  out  and  in  the  men  it  employs,  is 
advancing  or  retarding  the  reign  of  God  on  earth.  Our 
entire  business  system  would  be  under  the  condemnation  of 
religion  until  it  was  an  institutionalized  expression  of  the 
Christian  law  of  mutual  service.  If  our  business  men 
engaged  in  reorganizing  business  for  that  higher  end,  they 
could  for  the  first  time  in  history  have  the  same  ennobling 
sense  of  serving  God  which  a  minister,  a  teacher,  or  a 
mother  may  now  have.  They  are  now  a  disinherited  class 
in  religion.  They  have  a  religious  sense  of  worth  mainly 
when  they  are  doing  something  for  their  church  or  their 
philanthropies  outside  of  their  business.  The  kingdom  faith, 
once  lodged  in  a  man's  mind,  compels  every  man  to  become 
a  redeemer,  and  his  chief  redemptive  ministry  is  through 
his  job. — Professor  Walter  Bauschenbusch. 


CHAPTER  VII 

CHRISTIAN  SERVICE 

Christianity  means  a  measureless  weal  for 
humanity.  Its  wealth  of  inspiration  and  of 
ministry,  so  far  from  being  exhausted,  is  as 
yet  unexplored.  The  kingdom  of  Christ  seems 
slow  in  asserting  its  rightful  regnancy  in  the 
earth.  Its  practical  dominion  in  civilization, 
like  all  great  cosmic  movements,  is  of  seeming 
slow  development.    Its  approach  to  that 

.  .  .  one  far-off  divine  event 

To  which  the  whole  creation  moves 

is  really  apprehended  only  in  the  vision  of 
the  seer.  To  one  who  breathes  only  the  sordid 
spirit  of  the  world,  who  feels  that  he  must 
be  perpetually  on  guard  against  the  aggressions 
of  an  unscrupulous  and  grasping  selfishness, 
who  perhaps  in  his  own  business  has  been 
hurt  by  a  conscienceless  and  destructive  com- 
petition, there  comes  the  easy  temptation  to 
pessimism.  He  may  lose  faith  in  Christian 
goodness,  because  sorely  tempted  to  believe 
that  Christianity  as  a  practical  rule  of  life  is 
a  failure.     It  is  to  be  feared  that  too  many 

169 


170        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

men,  men  of  generally  good  purposes,  are  more 
or  less  victims  of  this  vicious  philosophy. 
This  state  of  mind  is  unfortunate.  It  is  mor- 
ally pitiable.  It  is  a  nether  view,  one  im- 
measurably below  the  plane  of  healthy  Christian 
inspirations. 

The  Church  itself  has  suffered  great  scandal 
from  its  own  professed  adherents  whose  con- 
duct has  given  too  much  justification  for  this 
view.  There  are  men  enrolled  in  church 
membership  who  attend  worship,  who  give 
money  for  the  support  of  Christian  institu- 
tions, yet  whose  churchianity  is  no  sure  guaran- 
tee of  their  ethical  soundness.  They  play  one 
role  in  the  church,  and  quite  another  in  the 
market  place.  This  kind  of  thing  has  occurred 
with  sufficient  frequency  to  furnish  to  the  lips 
of  the  scoffer  the  cynical  charge  that  "Chris- 
tianity is  either  a  fraud,  or  it  is  played  out." 
The  spirit  in  which  this  charge  is  made  is 
never  admirable.  The  charge  itself  is  no 
argument  against  Christianity.  At  worst,  it 
only  shows  that  there  are  either  defective  or 
false  members  in  the  formal  enrollment  of 
church  membership,  persons  in  whose  hearts 
and  lives  the  true  Christian  spirit  has  not 
come  to  enthronement.  Christianity,  as  yet,  is 
far  from  having  come  fully  to  its  own  in  human 
society. 


CHRISTIAN  SERVICE  171 

As  a  corrective  of  cheap  and  shallow  pes- 
simism one  needs  to  keep  company  with  his- 
tory. With  all  the  imperfections  and  shadows 
that  darken  the  present  civilizations,  one 
cannot  traverse  the  long  backward  vistas  with- 
out discovering  that  humanity  as  a  whole 
now  stands  on  higher  moral  and  spiritual 
levels,  is  in  possession  of  vaster  realms  of 
intelligence,  and  is  actuated  by  a  nobler  benev- 
olence, than  was  ever  true  of  any  preceding 
age.  Certainly  a  great  moral  leaven  is  working 
in  the  forward-moving  tides  of  history.  In  the 
so-called  Christian  civilizations,  fine  spiritual 
ideals  were  never  so  imperative,  there  never 
was  such  a  wealth  of  organized  education  and 
benevolence,  never  so  many  agencies  minister- 
ing to  human  weal  as  now.  Let  one  take  a 
survey  of  the  pagan  nations,  and  in  them  all 
map  out  the  work  of  Christian  missions,  ac- 
quainting himself  with  the  history  of  these 
missions,  their  history  of  heroic  service  and 
sacrifice,  their  transforming,  ameliorating  and 
uplifting  ministries,  the  colonies  of  spiritual 
enlightenment  which  they  have  raised  up  in 
the  dark  places  of  the  earth — and  he  must 
be  callous  and  blind  indeed  if  not  impressed 
that  some  irresistible  and  beneficent  Power  is 
installing  a  program  of  righteousness  for  the 
entire  world.    It  hardly  need  be  said  that  the 


172        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

highest  existing  moral  standards,  the  most 
luminous  education,  the  largest  wealth  of 
scientific  acquisition,  factors  which  prophesy 
the  best  future  for  humanity,  are  all  more 
largely  the  creation  of  Christianity  than  of 
all  other  agencies.  And  in  just  the  measure 
in  which  these  forces  are  working  most  benef- 
icently they  are  to  be  found  in  closest  company 
with  the  spirit  and  mission  of  the  Christian 
Church. 

All  men  need  to  hear  the  prophetic  voice. 
They  need  in  some  way  to  partake  of  the 
vision  of  the  seer.  Those  by  whom  the  voice 
is  unheard  and  to  whom  at  best  the  vision  is 
dim,  cannot  escape  the  twilight  territories  of 
the  spiritual  life.  For  any  clear  and  helpful 
understanding  of  what  Christianity  really  is, 
for  a  just  measurement  of  its  place  and  achieve- 
ment in  history,  vision  is  needed.  Christ  is 
the  incomprehensible  and  immeasurable  char- 
acter of  history.  At  first  neglected,  maltreated, 
crucified;  later,  the  scorn  of  the  philosopher, 
his  people  the  subjects  of  contempt  and  ridicule, 
and  finally  made  victims  of  fiercest  persecution; 
yet,  while  institutions  and  nations  have  per- 
ished, Christ  has  not  only  persisted,  but  with 
an  irresistible  fascination  he  is  more  and  more 
filling  the  thought  of  the  world.  In  the  later 
centuries,  indeed,  in  these  very  later  decades, 


CHRISTIAN  SERVICE  173 

Christ,  immeasurably  more  than  any  other 
historic  character,  has  drawn  to  himself  the 
most  critical  study  of  the  philosophic  and 
cultured  world.  His  enemies,  as  in  the  great 
drives  of  modern  armies,  have  hurled  against 
him  the  most  formidable  attacks  which  the 
most  consummately  resourceful  and  hostile  crit- 
icism could  devise.  It  is  conservative  to  say 
that  no  man  not  obviously  divine,  no  cause 
not  invincibly  grounded  in  truth,  could  have 
received  a  tithe  of  the  destructive  hostility 
which  has  been  directed  against  Jesus  Christ, 
and  survive.  But,  for  some  reason,  Christ 
continues  to  live.  All  weapons  forged  for  his 
destruction  fall  shattered  at  his  feet.  He 
emerges  from  every  conspiracy  formed  against 
him  with  character  unscathed.  When  the  din 
of  latest  controversy  has  been  silenced,  and 
its  confusions  have  cleared  away,  he  stands 
forth  more  than  ever  radiant  in  the  glories 
of  divinity. 

The  Church  has  been  adversely  criticized, 
and  justly.  Its  purely  human  elements  have 
often  given  it  unchristlike  expression.  Many 
of  its  traditions,  and  some  of  its  beliefs,  have 
not  been  able  to  withstand  the  scrutiny  of 
present-day  thought,  nor  have  they  been  found 
adapted  to  present-day  needs.  But  not  so 
Christ.    In  character,  in  example,  in  teaching. 


174        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

in  revelation,  he  always  stands  in  advance  of 
the  age  and  of  the  world's  needs.  There  is 
no  evidence  worthy  of  consideration  which 
would  lead  us  to  believe  that  he  himself  is 
losing  out  in  the  world's  thought.  He  was 
never  so  impressively  divine  before  the  vision 
of  mankind  as  now.  His  sovereignty  over  the 
consciences  of  men  is  an  ever- widening  realm. 
So  far  as  Christ  is  concerned,  the  book  of 
revelation  is  not  yet  complete.  The  Holy 
Spirit  by  his  inspirations  is  still  taking  of  the 
things  of  Christ  and  showing  them  unto  men. 
The  Church  has  a  larger  vision  of  Christ  to- 
day than  was  possible  even  to  the  apostolic 
age.  Christ  will  continue  to  grow  upon  the 
world's  thought,  his  sway  will  ever  widen, 
until  finally  in  universal  acclaim  he  shall  be 
hailed  as  Lord  of  lords  and  King  of  kings. 

I  have  entitled  this  chapter  "Christian 
Service."  This  is  a  great  theme.  It  is  in 
the  very  nature  of  Christianity  to  inspire  the 
spirit  of  service.  A  distinctive  mark  of  Christ's 
activity  was  that  "He  went  about  doing  good." 
He  seemingly  lost  no  opportunity  to  serve  the 
needy.  If  the  value  of  service  is  measured 
by  sacrifice,  then  Christ  paid  the  full  price. 
His  life  was  a  continuous  offering  for  the 
good  of  others.  In  the  sense  of  self-indulgence 
he  pleased  not  himself;  but  at  all  times — in 


CHRISTIAN  SERVICE  175 

hunger,  in  weariness,  in  a  perpetual  divorce 
of  his  life  from  luxuries  which  minister  to  the 
sense — he  literally  poured  out  the  wealth  of 
his  healing  sympathy  upon  human  needs. 

No  man  can  receive  the  spirit  of  Christ 
without  the  prompting  to  do  good.  The  first 
question  asked  by  Saul  of  Tarsus,  when  smitten 
on  his  Damascus  way,  was:  "What  wilt  thou 
have  me  to  do?"  His  first  impulse  was  to 
render  some  act  of  obedience,  of  service.  From 
the  day  of  his  conversion  to  the  day  of  his 
death  he  gave  himself  to  prodigious  toils.  He 
exposed  himself  to  untold  peril,  privation,  and 
suffering,  that  he  might  serve  those  for  whom 
Christ  had  died.  No  sooner  was  the  Christian 
Church  originated,  than  it  was  characterized 
by  a  new  and  distinctive  spirit  of  charity,  of 
benevolence,  of  well-doing  toward  all  in  want. 
One  of  its  earliest  organizations  was  a  bureau 
of  charities,  with  a  choice  of  select,  devout, 
and  wise  men  for  its  administrators. 

It  would  be  untrue  to  history  to  deny  that 
there  has  always  been  present  in  society  a 
spirit  of  altruism.  Noble  instances  of  a  mutual 
helpfulness  among  men  abound  in  pagan  his- 
tory. It  would  be  as  false  to  deny  the  presence 
of  mutual  kindliness  in  the  communities  of  all 
races  as  it  would  to  deny  that  God's  Spirit 
has  been   always   and   everywhere  present   to 


176         RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

quicken  the  moral  life  of  man.  A  distinctive 
glory  of  Christianity  is  that  it  laid  hold  upon 
the  native  altruism  of  the  human  heart,  and 
quickened  it  into  a  new  and  larger  life,  touch- 
ing it  with  the  spirit  of  sacrifice,  and  ordain- 
ing it  to  new  and  high  careers  of  service.  And 
so,  through  all  the  centuries  of  its  history, 
Christianity  has  been  characterized  by  the 
noblest  forms  of  service  for  human  needs.  To 
this  general  fact  history  gives  varied  and 
generous  testimony.    Lecky  says: 

There  can  be  no  question  that  neither  in  practice 
nor  in  theory,  neither  in  the  institutions  that  were 
founded  nor  in  the  place  that  was  assigned  to  it  in 
the  scale  of  duties,  did  charity  in  antiquity  occupy 
a  position  at  all  comparable  to  that  which  has  ob- 
tained by  Christianity.  .  .  .  Christianity  for  the 
first  time  made  charity  a  rudimentary  virtue,  giving 
it  the  foremost  place  in  the  moral  type,  and  in  the 
exhortations  of  its  teachers.  Besides  its  general 
influence  in  stimulating  the  affections,  it  effected  a 
complete  revolution  in  this  sphere,  by  representing 
the  poor  as  the  special  representatives  of  the  Chris- 
tian Founder,  and  thus  making  the  love  of  Christ 
rather  than  the  love  of  man  the  principle  of  charity. 
Even  in  the  days  of  persecution  collections  for  the 
relief  of  the  poor  were  made  at  the  Sunday  meetings. 
The  Agapae,  or  feasts  of  love,  were  intended  mainly 
for  the  poor,  and  food  that  was  saved  by  the  fasts 
was  devoted  to  their  benefit.  A  vast  organization 
of  charity,  presided  over  by  the  bishops,  and  actively 
directed  by  the  deacons,  soon  ramified  over  Chris- 
tendom, till  the  bond  of  charity  became  the  bond  of 
unity,  and  the  most  distant  sections  of  the  Christian 


CHRISTIAN  SERVICE  177 

Church  corresponded  by  the  interchange  of  mercy. 
Long  before  the  era  of  Constantine  it  was  observed 
that  the  charities  of  the  Christians  were  so  extensive 
— it  may,  perhaps,  be  said  so  excessive — that  they 
drew  very  many  impostors  to  the  Church,  and  when 
the  victory  of  Christianity  was  achieved,  the  en- 
thusiasm for  charity  displayed  itself  in  the  erection 
of  numerous  institutions  that  were  altogether  un- 
known to  the  pagan  world.  .  .  .  This  vast  and  un- 
ostentatious movement  of  charity,  operating  in  the 
village  hamlet  and  in  the  lonely  hospital,  staunching 
the  widow's  tears  and  following  all  the  windings  of 
the  poor  man's  griefs,  presents  few  features  the  im- 
agination can  grasp,  and  leaves  no  deep  impression 
on  the  mind.  The  greatest  things  are  often  those 
which  are  most  imperfectly  realized;  and  certainly 
no  achievements  of  the  Christian  Church  are  more 
truly  great  than  those  which  it  has  effected  in  the 
sphere  of  charity.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history 
of  mankind  it  has  inspired  many  thousands  of  men 
and  women,  at  the  sacrifice  of  all  worldly  interests, 
and  often  under  circumstances  of  extreme  discom- 
fort or  danger,  to  devote  their  entire  lives  to  the 
single  object  of  assuaging  the  sufferings  of  humanity. 
It  has  covered  the  globe  with  countless  institutions 
of  mercy,  absolutely  unknown  to  the  whole  pagan 
world.  It  has  indissolubly  united  in  the  minds  of 
men  the  idea  of  supreme  goodness  with  that  of 
active  and  constant  benevolence.  It  has  placed  in 
every  parish  a  religious  minister,  who,  whatever  may 
be  his  other  functions,  has  at  least  been  officially 
charged  with  the  superintendence  of  an  organiza- 
tion of  charity,  and  who  finds  in  this  office  one  of 
the  most  important  as  well  as  one  of  the  most 
legitimate  sources  of  his  power. 

The  emphasis  so  long  laid  upon  charity,  in 


178        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

the  sense  of  almsgiving,  has  not  proven  an 
unmixed  good  in  Christian  history.  As  in  the 
days  of  Christ,  when  some  followed  him  on 
account  of  the  loaves  and  fishes,  so  often 
unworthy  characters  have  attached  themselves 
to  the  Christian  community  on  account  of 
material  benefits  received.  But  even  this  is 
not  the  worst  phase  in  the  history.  With 
the  very  fact  of  giving  itself  a  false  virtue 
in  many  cases  came  to  be  associated.  The 
very  teaching  of  large  sections  of  the  Church 
has  become  tainted  with  the  notion  that  alms- 
giving is  a  sort  of  purchase  price  paid  by  the 
donor  for  a  higher  seat  in  heaven.  It  is  a 
misfortune  that  among  the  consecrations  and 
activities  of  Christians  the  mere  giving  of 
earthly  goods  has  so  long  and  so  widely  held 
large  and  disproportionate  place  in  the  con- 
ception of  Christian  duties  and  privileges. 
Even  now  multitudes  seem  to  think  their  en- 
tire duty  discharged  when  they  have  given 
a  modicum  of  their  material  prosperity  to  the 
causes  of  charity. 

The  real  Christian  motive  is  something  im- 
measurably broader  and  deeper  than  all  this. 
Divinest  and  largest  inspirations  are  coming  to 
fruitage  in  modern  Christian  life  in  the  awak- 
ened sense  of  God's  Fatherhood,  and  of  the 
Divine    Sonship    and    Brotherhood    of    man. 


CHRISTIAN  SERVICE  179 

When  any  man  awakens  to  the  fact  that  he 
is  potentially  and  rightfully  God's  son;  that 
all  men  of  all  races  are,  as  his  human  brothers, 
under  God's  purchase  to  this  same  heritage, 
there  is  opened  to  him  a  field  of  motive  and 
of  vision  as  broad  as  humanity,  as  high  as 
eternity.  This  view  becomes  at  once  a  great 
leveler  of  artificial  distinctions.  It  illuminates 
Christ's  practical  attitude  toward  the  poor, 
the  unprivileged,  and  outcasts  of  society. 
Stripping  each  soul  from  its  artificial,  and  it 
may  be  forbidding,  garb,  he  measured  its 
worth  alone  in  the  light  of  its  divine  possi- 
bilities. This  view,  when  fairly  apprehended, 
will  clothe  every  human  being,  no  matter  how 
apparently  hopeless  his  condition,  with  poten- 
tially infinite  values.  It  leaves  absolutely  no 
space  for  social  or  caste  exclusiveness  in  the 
field  of  evangelistic  endeavor.  It  installs  the 
full-orbed  Christian  a  citizen  of  the  entire 
world,  a  brother  of  all  humanity.  This  is  the 
motor-nerve  of  Christian  missions.  The  mes- 
sage of  Christianity  is  for  all  races.  Its  great 
light  is  for  those  who  inhabit  the  dark  places  of 
the  earth.  Its  message  of  sympathy  and  of 
healing  is  for  the  sick,  the  poor,  the  unpriv- 
ileged, the  hopeless  among  all  peoples.  The 
apprehension  of  this  view  has  inspired  the 
most   superb   moral   heroisms   of   history.     It 


180        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

was  this  which  made  Paul,  the  first  Christian 
missionary  to  the  Gentile  world,  morally 
irresistible;  this  which  has  given  him  imper- 
ishable place  in  the  admiration  of  mankind. 
It  was  this  view  which  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury transformed  Francis  of  Assisi  from  a 
"merry-hearted  and  careless  fellow,"  from  the 
spirit  of  a  dude  and  a  worldling,  into  one  of 
the  foremost  saints  of  history.  It  was  this 
which  prompted  him  to  lay  all  his  wealth  upon 
the  altars  of  the  Church,  and  to  adopt  Poverty 
as  his  bride;  this  which  drove  him  in  tireless 
ministry  to  the  sick,  the  lepers,  and  the  poor; 
this  which  sent  him  upon  distant  journeys 
to  Illyricum,  to  Spain,  and  even  to  Palestine, 
everywhere  preaching  Christ,  until  at  last, 
literally  worn  and  spent,  he  laid  himself  down 
to  die.  It  was  this  view  which  transformed 
Ignatius  Loyola  from  an  unbridled  libertine 
into  an  apostolic  missionary  of  Jesus  Christ; 
this  that  sent  Francisco  Xavier  on  his  perilous 
and  ceaseless  missionary  journeys  to  Japan 
and  to  the  Indies.  A  roll  call  of  the  indom- 
itable founders  of  missionary  empire  would 
present  countless  names  of  those  whose  spir- 
itual heroism  has  lent  imperishable  luster  to 
the  moral  history  of  mankind. 

William  Cary,   the    converted   cobbler,  who 
translated  the  Bible  into  languages  spoken  by 


CHRISTIAN  SERVICE  181 

three  hundred  million  of  Orientals;  David 
Brainerd,  who  consecrated  his  talents  to  carry- 
ing civilization  and  Christianity  to  the  savages 
of  the  wilderness;  Henry  Martyn,  the  brilliant 
Cambridge  scholar,  making  by  his  translations 
the  Scriptures,  in  whole  or  in  part,  accessible 
to  one  fourth  the  inhabitants  of  the  globe; 
not  only  this,  but  literally  spending  himself 
in  Christian  labors  among  the  poor  in  India, 
until,  exhausted  by  fatigue  and  wasted  by 
disease,  he  sank  in  death  at  the  early  age  of 
thirty-two;  Robert  Morrison  in  China  writing 
a  grammar  of  the  language  and  translating  the 
Bible  into  the  dialects,  waiting  undiscouraged 
seven  years  before  being  permitted  to  rejoice 
in  his  first  convert;  Chalmers  in  New  Guinea; 
Paton  in  the  South  Sea  Islands;  Livingstone,  in 
Christ-like  passion,  seeking  the  salvation  of 
the  Africans,  forgetting  that  they  were  black 
and  remembering  only  that  they  were  fellow- 
mortals;  and  those  more  recent  men,  the 
Butlers,  the  Parkers,  and  the  Thoburns  of 
India;  Griffith  John,  Timothy  Richard,  James 
W.  Bashford,  and  Wilson  S.  Lewis  of  China 
— these  men,  inspired  by  the  love  and  the 
heroism  of  the  cross,  have  risen  to  the  highest 
types  of  Christian  character.  They  rank  among 
the  moral  altruists  of  history,  great  in  faith, 
great  in  hope,  great  in  action,  because  their 


182        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

own  souls  were  filled  with  Christ's  vision  of 
humanity.  Their  service,  a  Christ-inspired 
service,  can  never  be  fully  portrayed. 

Sir  Alexander  McArthur,  an  eminent  English 
publicist,  says: 

I  believe  the  advancement  of  civilization,  the  ex- 
tension of  commerce,  the  increase  of  knowledge  in 
arts,  science,  and  literature,  the  promotion  of  civil 
and  religious  hberty,  the  development  of  countries 
rich  in  undiscovered  mineral  and  vegetable  wealth, 
are  all  intimately  identified  with  and,  to  much  a 
larger  extent  than  most  people  are  aware  of,  depend- 
ent upon  the  work  of  the  missionaries;  and  I  hold 
that  the  missionary  has  done  more  to  civilize  and 
to  benefit  the  heathen  world  than  any  or  all  other 
agencies  ever  employed. 

Bishop  W.  F.  Oldham,  born  in  India,  and 
a  lifelong  observer  of  missions  and  missionary 
workers,  writing  of  the  missionaries,  says: 

They  are  revolutionizing  society.  They  are 
waking  ancient  peoples  from  the  graves  of  the  past. 
They  are  kindling  a  new  passion  for  freedom. 
They  are  breaking  the  bonds  of  ancient  superstitions 
and  conservative  traditions.  They  are  breathing 
new  life  into  multiplied  millions  of  the  human  fam- 
ilies. If  there  be  a  rebirth  in  China — and  the 
pangs  of  a  new  life  are  being  felt  in  India,  and  the 
dark  places  of  Africa  are  being  wrested  from  the 
dominion  of  cruelty  and  lust — if,  in  a  word,  the 
thraldom  of  ignorance  and  wrong  is  being  overturned 
in  half  the  world,  the  commanding  figure  behind  the 
whole  movement  that  is  doing  these  things  is  the 
humble  missionary. 


CHRISTIAN  SERVICE  183 

I  have  emphasized  missionary  service,  be- 
cause the  history  of  this  service,  in  an  eminent 
manner,  illustrates  those  high  moral  enthusiasms 
for  humanity  which  are  begotten  only  in  the 
faith  and  experiences  of  Jesus  Christ.  When 
a  man  has  really  entered  into  Christ's  vision 
of  Divine  Sonship  and  of  Human  Brotherhood, 
he  can  no  longer  entertain  a  narrow  view 
either  of  duty  or  of  opportunity  in  his  rela- 
tions to  Christ's  kingdom.  He  must  awaken 
to  a  sense  of  true  partnership  with  Jesus  Christ 
in  the  mission  of  world-redemption. 

If  it  be  a  fact  that  Jesus  is  revealing  himself 
with  ever-growing  fullness  to  human  thought, 
then,  from  many  standpoints,  it  must  follow 
that  enlarging  conceptions  of  the  meaning  of 
Christ's  kingdom  must  enter  into  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  Christian  world  is  awaking  to  a  new 
and  greatly  enlarged  view  both  concerning  the 
scope  of  Christ's  mission  and  the  agencies  of 
its  promotion.  In  Christianity  and  the  New 
Age  I  express  perhaps  as  well  as  I  am  able  to 
do  my  view  and  conviction  concerning  some 
of  the  promotive  factors  of  the  larger  ideals. 
In  the  chapter  on  "Modern  Prophets"  the 
following  characterization  is  given: 

They  are  men  of  high  culture,  men  of  vision  who 
have  both  large  insight  into  and  outlook  upon  life. 


184        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

They  are  patriots,  men  with  a  large  love  of  country. 
They  are  lovers  of  their  kind,  men  who  see  the  larger 
possibilities  in  human  nature,  and  who  ardently  de- 
sire to  remove  obstacles  to  progress  and  to  promote 
the  conditions  through  which  all  men  may  come  to 
their  best.  They  are  independent  thinkers.  They 
are  not  the  hired  creatures  of  either  corporate  or 
private  interests.  They  are  not  partisans.  Their 
vision  is  not  blinded  by  greed.  They  are  unselfish 
workers  for  humanity.  They  have  the  courage  of 
their  convictions.  The  most  fruitful  source  of  their 
ideals  is  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  They  exalt 
Christ  himself  as  the  supreme  Teacher  and  Exemplar 
of  the  new  humanity.  They  dwell  in  clear  atmos- 
pheres of  thought  and  of  observation.  The  moral 
qualities  of  the  social,  industrial,  mercantile,  and 
political  worlds  are  by  none  more  clearly  seen  and 
measured  than  by  these.  To  them  in  an  eminent 
degree  is  given  to  view  the  evils,  the  frauds,  the  in- 
justices, the  oppressions  of  society  as  in  the  very 
white  light  of  righteousness.  Their  indignation  is 
aroused  against  all  monopolistic  policies,  the  exe- 
cution of  which  means  the  depression  of  the  social, 
intellectual,  or  moral  possibilities  of  the  poor  and 
the  defenseless.  Their  sense  of  human  worth  is  so 
supreme,  their  view  of  God's  impartial  love  for  all 
his  children  so  clear,  that,  as  in  the  case  of  their 
ancient  prototype,  the  word  of  the  Lord  is  in  their 
hearts  as  a  burning  fire  shut  up  in  their  bones,  so 
that  they  cannot  refrain  from  lifting  up  their  voices 
until  the  Lord  shall  have  delivered  the  soul  of  the 
poor  from  the  hand  of  evildoers. 


Dr.  William  DeWitt  Hyde,  president  of 
Bowdoin  College,  has  recently  issued  a  book 
entitled  The  Gospel  of  Good  Will  as  Revealed 


CHRISTIAN  SERVICE  185 

in  Contemporary  Scriptures.  The  author  takes 
as  his  type  of  "Contemporary  Scriptures"  The 
Passing  of  the  Third  Floor  Back;  The  Servant 
in  the  House;  Thomas  Mott  Osborne's  Within 
Prison  Walls;  An  American  Citizen,  by  John 
Graham  Brooks;  How  Belgium  Saved  Europe; 
Dennison's  Beside  the  Bowery;  Masefield's  The 
Everlasting  Mercy;  Riis's  The  Making  of  an 
American  and  The  Battle  With  the  Slums; 
and  Churchill's  Inside  of  the  Cup.  These 
selections,  which  Dr.  Hyde  has  been  pleased 
to  designate  as  "Contemporary  Scriptures,"  are 
taken  from  current  plays,  from  chapters  of  the 
War,  from  biography,  from  poetry,  from  novels, 
from  discussions  as  to  the  duties  of  citizen- 
ship and  the  problem  of  the  slums. 

The  subtitle  "Contemporary  Scriptures"  may 
possibly  come  with  something  of  shock  to 
some  minds.  But  why.^  If  Christianity  has 
not  by  this  time  put  its  leaven  into,  and 
furnished  the  highest  themes  for,  current  lit- 
erature, then  we  would  have  to  regard  it  as 
having  disastrously  failed  in  at  least  a  large 
section  of  its  mission.  Our  historians,  novel- 
ists, and  poets  are  the  real  seers,  if  we  have 
any,  of  the  modern  age.  To  whom  may  we 
look  for  luminous  interpretation  of  loftiest 
faith,  to  whom  for  vision  of  the  larger  applica- 
tions of  Christianity  to  the  broader  needs  of 


186        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

humanity,  if  not  to  these  elect  minds?  In 
any  event,  it  is  only  a  dull  ear  that  fails  to 
hear  the  prophetic  voices  of  the  age;  only  a 
purblind  vision  that  fails  to  discern  the  rising 
tide  of  new  and  transforming  movements  which 
are  both  challenging  and  taxing  the  very 
genius  of  Christian  leadership. 

The  signal  word  that  lies  at  the  heart  of 
the  modern  Christian  demand  is — SERVICE. 
Good  will  among  men  is  the  spirit  in  which 
this  service  is  to  be  fulfilled.  The  distinctive 
characteristic  of  the  modern  view  is  not  that 
of  alms-giving  in  the  sense  of  meeting  the 
immediate  physical  needs  of  the  unfortunate, 
but,  rather,  that  larger  duty  of  Christian 
society  to  remove  and  to  destroy  the  very 
insanitary  conditions  which  are  the  breeders 
of  social  misfortune  and  poverty.  Shailer 
Mathews,  one  of  the  clearest  visioned  of  the 
modern  prophets,  has  recently  said:  "There  is 
only  one  great  creative  enthusiasm  in  American 
Protestantism — the  gospel  of  a  saved  society 
as  well  as  of  saved  individuals."  Another 
brilliant  modern  prophet,  the  lamented  Charles 
Silvester  Home,  doing  his  last  work  with 
young  men  in  the  school  of  the  prophets  at 
Yale  University,  said: 

The  young  preachers  of  recent  years  have  explored 
the  contents  of  the  word  "righteousness"  with  the 


CHRISTIAN  SERVICE  187 

enthusiasm  of  pioneers  opening  up  rich  and  fertile 
lands  for  the  inheritance  of  the  future.  Something 
has  been  happening  even  within  the  academic 
borders  of  our  colleges.  Men  have  been  facing  life 
as  it  is,  and  bringing  it  to  the  light  of  Christ.  The 
social  economist  has  invaded  our  quiet  sanctuaries 
of  religious  thought  with  his  disturbing  facts  and 
figures;  and  our  young  men  have  seen  visions.  The 
new  compulsion  has  driven  them  down  to  the  over- 
crowded areas  where  the  disinherited  of  civilization 
make  shift  to  exist;  and  the  result  has  been  that 
unique  personal  experience  which  changes  scientific 
statistics  into  human  facts.  Is  anyone  surprised 
that  a  new  note  can  be  detected  in  our  preaching? 
Does  anyone  marvel  that  young  prophets  are  fling- 
ing down  their  challenge  to  society;  and  that  features 
of  industrialism  which  have  been  too  long  accepted 
as  inevitable  are  to-day  the  objects  of  fiery  arraign- 
ment by  men  who  are  looking  at  them  through  eyes 
which  Christ  has  purged  and  enlightened.^  We  are 
beginning  to  believe  things  which  would  have  ap- 
palled our  ancestors.  We  are  beginning  to  believe 
that  poverty  need  not  exist;  and  that  the  restric- 
tions upon  human  life  and  happiness,  due  to  poverty, 
may  be  abolished.  We  see  in  the  near  future  an 
almost  indefinite  elevation  of  the  standard  of  living; 
and  we  throw  the  whole  authority  of  Christianity 
into  the  scales  in  favor  of  -the  two  great  modern 
ideals,  that  work  shall  be  equitably  remunerated, 
and  that  wealth  shall  be  equitably  distributed. 

After  all,  it  is  not  strange.  Great  causes  always 
create  a  race  of  prophets.  The  watchword  of  the 
past  century  was  Freedom.  WTiat  orators  the 
passion  for  freedom  created  in  this  great  land! 
Aye,  and  what  martyrs  for  freedom  it  made!  The 
watchword  of  our  new  century  is  Justice.  It  will 
create  as  splendid  an  army  of  prophets;  and  it  may 


188        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

very  well  be  that  before  the  victory  is  won,  men  and 
women  will  have  to  buy  the  new  inheritance  at 
great  price.  But  buy  it  they  will,  for  the  master 
passion  in  the  breasts  of  our  young  men  is  that  the 
will  of  the  Father  shall  be  done  "on  earth  as  in 
heaven."  .  .  .  The  preacher  who  is  going  forth  unto 
the  battlefield  to-day  for  the  kingdom  of  God  on 
earth,  will  enter  the  fray  to  hearkening  strains  of 
music.  The  Church  of  God  to-day  does  not  despair 
of  calling  into  existence  a  Christian  civilization.  It 
refuses  to  acquiesce  in  the  permanence  of  those  social 
vices  and  social  wrongs  that  have  intrenched  them- 
selves so  deeply  even  under  the  visible  authority  of 
the  cross.  There  is  arising  an  army  of  young 
knights  of  Christ  who  have  taken  sacramental 
vows  that  none  of  their  brethren  shall  have  to  live 
in  the  future  under  conditions  that  are  fatal  alike 
to  physical  health  and  to  even  a  moderate  standard 
of  chastity  and  honor.  They  have  vowed  that  the 
cruel  exigencies  of  a  merciless  competition  shall  not 
always  kill  the  truth  and  seK-respect  of  those  who 
are  taken  in  its  toils.  They  are  resolved  that  the 
progress  of  humanity  shall  be  something  better  and 
nobler  than  an  unrelieved  struggle  for  existence;  and 
men  something  diviner  than 

"Dragons  of  the  prime 
That  tear  each  other  in  their  slime.** 


Christianity  must  work  itself  vitally  into  all 
the  organism  of  human  society.  It  must  fur- 
nish finally  the  practical  and  controlling  ideals 
of  education,  of  business  and  political  ethics, 
of  home  and  social  intercourse,  of  the  uses  of 
capital.    Its  ideals  of  righteousness  must  be  so 


CHRISTIAN  SERVICE  189 

infused  in  civilization  as  to  bring  about  a  com- 
pact of  peace  and  good  will  among  the  nations, 

When  the  war-drum  throbs  no  longer 
And  the  battle-flags  are  furled 

In  the  Parliament  of  man, 
The  federation  of  the  world. 

The  final  ideal  of  Revelation  is  that  of  a 
new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth 
righteousness.  The  capital  city  of  the  new 
earth  is  the  "New  Jerusalem,"  a  holy  city 
which  is  to  come  down  from  God  out  of  heaven. 
The  foundations  of  this  city  are  to  be  prepared 
by  a  redeemed  Church.  Spiritually  regenerated 
men,  men  of  largest  intelligence  and  consecra- 
tion, sun-crowned  men,  will  henceforth  be  more 
than  ever  needed  as  the  upbuilders  of  Christ's 
kingdom  in  the  earth.  Such  are  to  be  the 
moral  regenerators  of  human  society.  They  are 
to  make  the  very  earth  a  fit  dwelling  place 
for  God  and  his  people.  This  mission  calls 
for  a  program  of  service  far  larger  and  far 
more  varied  than  has  yet  been  entertained  in 
Christian  thought.  This  program  is  such  as 
could  be  inspired  only  by  the  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity. That  Christianity  has  given  birth  to 
this  conception  is  signal  proof  of  its  own 
divinity. 


VIII 
THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST 


What  we  have  felt  and  seen 

With  confidence  we  tell; 
And  publish  to  the  sons  of  men 

The  signs  infallible. 

If  any  man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine. 
— Jesus. 

Under  the  inspiring  influence  of  Christ's  teaching  and 
example  the  Christian  Church  asserted  the  individual  rights 
of  man;  recognized  the  divine  image  in  every  rational  being; 
taught  the  common  creation  and  the  common  redemption, 
and  the  destination  of  all  for  immortality  and  glory;  raised 
the  humble  and  lowly;  comforted  the  prisoner  and  captive, 
the  stranger  and  exile;  proclaimed  chastity  as  a  funda- 
mental virtue,  elevated  woman  to  a  dignity  and  equality 
with  man;  upheld  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie;  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  Christian  family  and  home;  moderated 
the  evils  and  undermined  the  foundations  of  slavery;  op- 
posed polygamy  and  concubinage;  denounced  the  exposure 
of  children  as  murder;  made  relentless  war  on  the  bloody 
games  of  the  arena  and  circus,  on  the  shocking  indecencies 
of  the  theater,  and  on  cruelty,  oppression,  and  vice;  infused 
into  a  heartless  and  loveless  world  the  spirit  of  love  and 
brotherhood;  transformed  sinners  into  saints,  frail  women 
into  heroines,  and  lit  up  the  darkness  of  the  tomb  by  the 
bright  ray  of  unending  bliss  of  heaven. — Philip  S chaff . 

Although  the  career  of  the  elder  Pitt  and  the  splendid 
victories  by  land  and  sea  that  were  won  during  his  ministry, 
form  unquestionably  the  most  dazzling  episodes  in  the  reign 
of  George  IT,  they  must  yield,  I  think,  in  real  importance 
to  that  religious  revolution  which  shortly  before  had  begun 
in  England  by  the  preaching  of  the  Wesleys  and  Whitefield, 
—W.  E.  H.  Lecky. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST 

Pragmatism  as  a  distinct  system  is  one  of 
the  younger  members  of  the  philosophic  family. 
William  James  tells  us  that  the  term  was  first 
introduced  into  philosophy  by  Mr.  Charles 
Peirce  in  1878.  Webster's  definition  of  philo- 
sophical pragmatism  is  as  follows:  "The  doc- 
trine that  the  whole  meaning  of  a  conception 
is  to  be  sought  in  its  practical  consequences, 
and  that  the  purpose  of  thinking  is  to  develop 
beliefs  which  shall  serve  as  general  principles 
of  conduct." 

Pragmatism  as  a  philosophy  deals  primarily, 
it  would  be  true  perhaps  to  say  exclusively, 
with  the  facts  of  experience.  Dismissing  sub- 
stantially all  abstract  theories,  all  the  posits 
of  an  arbitrary  theology,  all  logical  deductions 
based  simply  on  premises  of  academic  thought, 
pragmatism  proposes  to  keep  company  alone 
with  the  facts  of  experience,  and  to  seek  from 
these  facts  the  truths  which  shall  furnish  prac- 
tical guidance  for  both  faith  and  conduct. 
The  difference  between  pragmatism  and  ration- 
193 


194        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

alism  is  stated  as  follows:  "The  one  is  uncom- 
fortable away  from  facts;  the  other  is  com- 
fortable only  in  the  presence  of  abstractions." 
The  habit  of  pragmatism  is  defined  as  "the 
attitude  of  looking  away  from  first  things, 
principles,  categories,  supposed  necessities,  and 
of  looking  toward  last  things,  fruits,  conse- 
quences, facts."  The  theory  of  pragmatism  is 
that  philosophy  should  begin  its  teachings 
about  life  from  the  standpoint  of  experience 
itself.  This  is  the  natural  genius  of  philosophic 
thought.  Practically,  men  seek  to  know  the 
meaning  of  life's  experiences  here  and  now, 
experiences  that  rise  in  the  very  midst  of  life's 
activities.  Pragmatism  assumes  that  to  know 
this  is  the  key  to  all  problems.  The  terminal 
points  of  life  and  destiny,  the  beginning  or  the 
end  of  our  being,  may  not  be  unimportant 
subjects  of  thought;  but  we  are  to  derive  our 
most  truthful  and  valuable  conceptions  of  these 
from  the  facts  and  trends  of  life's  present 
experiences.  "Interested  in  no  conclusions  but 
those  which  our  minds  and  our  experiences 
work  out  together,  she  has  no  a  priori  prej- 
udices against  theology.  If  theological  ideas 
prove  to  have  a  value  for  concrete  life,  they 
will  be  true,  for  pragmatism,  in  the  sense  of 
being  good  for  so  much.  For  how^  much  more 
they   are   true   will    depend   entirely   on   their 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  195 

relations  to  the  other  truths  that  also  have 
to  be  acknowledged." 

It  is  thus  hinted  that  a  task  for  pragmatism 
is  to  give  coordination .  to,  to  find  harmony  of 
relationship  for,  all  accepted  truths.  When 
truths  of  experience  seem  to  be  in  conflict, 
this  must  mean  either  that  the  inclusive  facts 
have  not  received  full  interpretation,  or  that 
somewhere  there  has  been  a  misconstruction 
of  the  facts  themselves.  The  lessons  from  all 
experience  must  be  found  finally  to  stand  in 
relations  of  mutual  harmony.  It  is  vital  to 
this  philosophy  that  the  full  and  exact  mean- 
ing of  the  facts  of  experience  as  bearing  upon 
life  should  be  understood.  Also  that  the 
lessons  of  all  facts  as  interpreted  should  not 
be  found  finally  discordant  with  the  larger 
consensus  of  life's  experiences.  Thus  it  appears 
that  the  pragmatic  philosophy  has  much  to  do 
to  guard  securely  the  territory  within  its  own 
assigned  borders. 

The  central  teaching  of  pragmatism  is  that 
all  of  life's  values  for  truth  and  for  guidance 
are  furnished  us  in  the  lessons  of  experience. 
The  value  of  any  assumed  fact,  whether  in 
the  realm  of  theology  or  of  philosophy,  is  to 
be  assayed  only  by  its  practical  effects  on  life. 
If  a  fact  or  an  idea  in  practical  application  is 
found  to  be  beneficial  to  life,  then   by  so  far 


196        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

it  is  true;  if  otherwise,  it  is  false.  "The  true 
is  the  name  of  whatever  proves  itself  to  be 
good  in  the  way  of  belief,  and  good  too  for 
definite,  assignable  reasons."  Such  is  prag- 
matism. 

If  pragmatism  were  offered  to  us  as  a  uni- 
versal and  adequate  philosophy  of  life,  we 
might  perhaps  wisely  hesitate  to  accept  it  as 
such.  No  less  acute  philosopher  than  Rudolf 
Eucken  characterizes  pragmatism  as  an  incom- 
plete and  misleading  philosophy,  a  philosophy 
that  furnishes  really  an  unworthy  basis  for  the 
spiritual  life  of  man.  He  thinks  that  prag- 
matism reverses  the  essential  idea  of  truth 
itself.  The  deepest  conception  of  truth  is  to 
be  found  in  the  idea  that  "in  truth  man  attains 
to  something  superior  to  all  his  own  opinions 
and  inclinations,  something  that  possesses  a 
validity  completely  independent  of  any  human 
consent;  the  hope  of  an  essentially  new  life 
is  thus  held  out  to  man,  a  vision  of  a  wider 
and  richer  being,  an  inner  communion  with 
reality,  a  liberation  from  all  that  is  merely 
human.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  good 
of  the  individual  and  of  humanity  becomes 
the  highest  aim  and  the  guiding  principle,  truth 
sinks  to  the  level  of  a  merely  utilitarian  opin- 
ion." From  the  pragmatic  basis,  Eucken  sees 
room  for  irreducible  anarchy  in  the  field  of 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  197 

truth  itself.  His  construction  is  that  prag- 
matism confines  its  ends  to  human  hfe,  at 
best  to  civilization  on  the  broad  scale.  He 
doubts  whether  pragmatism  thus  yields  a 
philosophy  of  the  highest  values.  He  asks: 
*Ts  this  life,  when  taken  as  in  itself  the  final 
thing,  really  worth  all  the  trouble  and  excite- 
ment, all  the  work  and  effort,  all  the  suffering 
and  sacrifice,  that  it  costs.?  When  we  examine 
this  life,  with  its  vanity  and  show  and  its 
inner  emptiness,  when  we  consider  how  it  is 
penetrated  through  and  through  by  impurity 
and  pretense,  does  it  not  seem  a  fearful  con- 
tribution? Shall  the  quest  after  truth  be 
made  a  means  for  the  preservation  of  this 
exceedingly  dubious  life.^^  We  cannot  conceive 
of  any  belief  more  hazardous  than  a  faith  in 
life  so  baseless  as  this." 

Eucken,  nevertheless,  sees  much  to  approve 
in  the  pragmatic  philosophy.  He  even  suggests 
the  desirability  that  German  thinkers  should 
give  more  attention  to  this  system  of  thought. 
There  can  be  no  question  that  pragmatism  is 
receiving  large,  perhaps  widening,  attention  and 
indorsement  among  highly  competent  thinkers. 
Dr.  Borden  P.  Bowne,  of  whom  Eucken  has 
written,  "Dr.  Bowne  was  a  philosopher  of 
America,  and  as  such  all  America  may  be 
proud  of  him  and  his  memory,"  was  himself 


198        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

much  of  a  pragmatist.  He  was  quite  in  the 
habit  of  subjecting  speculative  and  difficult 
questions  to  the  processes  of  life  itself.  Ex- 
perience is  the  great  solver  of  life's  difficult 
problems.  "How  does  it  work  in  life?"  is  a 
question  which  Bowne  freely  used  as  a  test 
of  religious  values.  Bowne  believed  fully, 
however,  in  the  overruling  of  a  Beneficent 
Spirit  in  the  world,  and  that  the  working  of 
this  Spirit  is  historically  demonstrated  in  the 
actual  and  wide  trends  of  human  betterment. 
The  great  historic  beliefs  born  of  Christianity 
are  found  "contributing  toward  a  higher  civil- 
ization, a  nobler  moral  order,  a  clearer  concep- 
tion of  duty  and  the  greatest  good  to  the 
race."  These  beliefs  are  pragmatically  self- 
proving.  Bowne's  pragmatism,  however,  was 
no  simply  utilitarian  dream.  It  was  founded 
on  the  broadest  theistic  basis,  a  basis  which 
reverently  accepted  both  the  wisdom  and 
beneficence  of  God's  rule  in  the  world,  and 
is,  therefore,  not  subject  to  the  whims  of 
individual  interpretation. 

In  any  event,  it  may  be  accepted,  pragmatism 
presents  certain  valuable  criteria  to  the  tests 
of  which  we  may  confidently  submit  the  human 
values  of  the  Christian  faith.  The  remaining 
sections  of  this  discussion  will  be  devoted  to 
inquiries,  from  a  few  chosen  and  signal  fields. 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  199 

as  to  the  verdict  of  the  pragmatic  view  con- 
cerning these  values. 

1.  Let  us  first  venture  into  the  field  of 
general  history.  It  has  been  often  asserted, 
and  by  most  competent  historical  authorities, 
that  the  moral  world  of  the  Roman  age,  at 
the  time  when  Christianity  first  asserted  its 
strength,  was  blase.  Religiously,  with  of  course 
noted  exceptions,  it  was  a  world  cynical,  faith- 
less, hopeless.  Godless.  The  nominal  gods  were 
numerous.  But,  if  worshiped  at  all,  they  were 
invested  with  an  atmosphere  of  gross  super- 
stition. There  were  no  great  moral  compulsions 
in  the  polytheistic  thought  of  the  age.  The 
strongest  philosophers  were  skeptics.  The  ex- 
ceedingly rich,  of  whom  there  were  many,  not 
only  lived  under  the  surfeit  and  pall  of  luxury, 
but  they  bore  themselves  with  an  air  of  super- 
cilious scorn  and  contempt  toward  the  unpriv- 
ileged life  around  them.  They,  for  the  most 
part,  had  no  upward  spiritual  vision,  and  life 
itself  was  made  heavy  under  the  cloy  and 
congestion  of  exhausted  pleasures. 

On  that  hard  Pagan  world  disgust 

And  secret  loathing  fell; 
Deep  weariness  and  sated  lust 

Made  human  life  a  hell. 

Human  society  was  a  medley.  In  it  there 
existed  all  extremes  of  social  condition.     Mul- 


200        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

titudes  were  poor,  and  their  life  was  hopeless 
and  unaspiring.  The  majority  were  slaves, 
and  they  were  regarded  as  mere  cattle,  human 
beings  without  personality,  without  rights,  with 
no  hope,  and  no  future  except  to  grind  and  to 
be  ground  in  the  relentless  mills  of  desperate 
fate.  It  was  a  world  that  coarsely  amused 
itself  by  the  exhibitions  of  human  beings  thrown 
to  wild  beasts  in  the  amphitheaters,  and  by 
duels  of  gladiators  engaged  in  mortal  combat. 
It  was  a  sensual  world.  Some  luminous  excep- 
tions must  be  remembered,  but  for  the  most 
part  it  was  a  world  in  which  atrocious  im- 
morality both  abounded  and  was  shameless. 
Divorce,  the  conspicuous  index  of  a  frivolous, 
lax,  and  immoral  society,  was  prevalent. 
Woman  was  held  in  low  esteem.  Infanticide 
was  notoriously  common.  Eucken  himself 
characterizes  this  as  a  world  of  "decadent  and 
perishing  humanity,"  peopled  with  a  race 
"grown  dull  and  weary." 

It  was  into  such  a  world  as  this  that  Chris- 
tianity, with  its  renewing  ideals  and  life-giving 
power,  made  its  advent.  Nothing  can  be 
more  impressive  than  the  contrast  between 
Rome  and  early  Christianity.  Rome  was  im- 
perial, all-powerful,  world-ruling,  seemingly  irre- 
sistible, treasuring  in  herself  the  wealth  of  all 
historic    traditions,    philosophies,    arts,    laws. 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  201 

learning.  Christianity  took  its  origin  under 
conditions  commonly  regarded  as  contemptible. 
It  grew  under  the  open  sky  of  poverty.  It 
must  come  to  stalwart  youth,  if  at  all,  only  in 
a  withering  atmosphere  of  social  ostracism  and 
scorn.  When  it  came  to  the  consciousness  of 
its  mission  it  found  itself  confronted  by  officially 
sanctioned  conspiracies  of  appalling  opposition. 
Its  pathway  of  progress  lay  through  the  terri- 
tory of  martyrdom,  a  territory  in  which  on 
every  hand  it  had  to  face  the  fiery  ordeals  of 
the  sword  and  of  the  stake. 

But  Christianity,  thus  born,  and  thus  out- 
lawed and  criminalized,  proved  herself  morally 
invincible.  She  brought  a  new  spiritual  sway 
and  a  new  social  life  to  the  empire.  In  the 
face  of  all  heathen  philosophies  and  usages, 
she  presented  a  gospel  of  high  and  pure 
ideals,  of  uncompromising  moral  demands. 
She  preached  a  gospel  of  helpfulness  and 
sympathy,  a  gospel  of  divine  healing  from  sin 
and  its  guilt,  a  gospel  of  human  brotherhood, 
a  gospel  inspirational  with  the  promise  of  a 
holy  and  heavenly  immortality  possible  to  all 
men,  to  the  slave  as  well  as  to  the  king,  to 
the  poor  as  to  the  rich,  to  the  ignorant  as  well 
as  to  the  seer.  Christianity  did  not  hesitate 
not  only  openly  to  rebuke,  but  to  put  itself 
in  positive  reversal  to,  the  rooted  evils  of  the 


202        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

age.  She  denounced  the  wickedness  of  divorce; 
presented  a  standard  of  divine  worth  and 
dignity  for  womanhood;  denounced  infanticide 
as  murder;  proscribed  the  brutal  games  of  the 
amphitheater;  taught  that  the  very  slave  must 
be  treated  as  a  human  brother,  the  legitimate 
holder  of  a  birthright  in  God's  spiritual  family, 
the  rightful  heir  to  all  the  benefits  of  a  divine 
redemption. 

Nothing  in  contrast  with  the  traditional  and 
dominant  habits  of  the  age  could  be  more 
radical,  more  revolutionary,  than  this  pro- 
gram of  Christianity  as  thrust  into  the  life 
of  the  Roman  empire.  This  program  must 
be  humanly  anticipated  as  hopeless,  a  program 
indeed  impossible  unless  perchance  God  should 
be  found  reenforcing  it  with  the  agencies  of 
his  own  infinite  Spirit.  History  records  the 
result.  Christianity  created  a  new  moral  em- 
pire in  the  old  paganism.  She  brought  a  puri- 
fying, transforming,  and  uplifting  faith  and 
hope  to  the  old  and  dying  world.  A  new  moral 
life,  instinct  with  divinest  inspirations  for  hu- 
manity, put  its  captivating  lure  upon  untold 
multitudes  of  the  poor  and  the  hopeless,  and 
they  set  their  faces  toward  a  new  spiritual 
heritage.  The  features  of  this  history  are  too 
numerous  and  too  various  to  permit  detailed 
mention.     But  the  history  itself  stands  as  the 


i 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  203 

record  of  what,  on  the  whole,  must  be  regarded 
as  the  most  marvelous  period  of  moral  trans- 
formation and  of  social  uplift  which  has  taken 
place  in  the  human  ages.  This  movement 
grew  entirely  out  of  the  experiences  of  the 
Christian  life.  From  Christian  inspirations 
were  begotten  the  totality  of  consecration,  the 
quenchless  zeal,  the  dauntless  heroism,  the 
altruistic  service,  the  unswerving  faith  and 
hope,  which  resulted  in  the  spiritual  conquest 
of  that  pagan  world.  The  movement  as  a 
whole  may  have  been  characterized  by  a  some- 
what mixed  history.  Doubtless  mistakes,  and 
occasionally  alien  motives,  may  here  and  there 
have  marred  its  perfection;  but  it  is  absolutely 
certain  that  all  pure  Christian  action,  the 
kind  of  action  which  dominated  the  history, 
was  itself  an  unmeasured  contribution  to  hu- 
man betterment.  If  a  movement  is  to  be 
judged  by  its  fruits,  then  a  pragmatic  philos- 
ophy can  ask  for  no  better  proof  of  the  truth 
of  Christianity  than  is  furnished  in  this  history 
of  moral  conquest. 

2.  The  Church,  beyond  all  question,  is  the 
loftiest  and  greatest  human  organism  which 
Christianity  has  created.  But  from  the  very  fact 
that  it  is  composed  of  human  elements  it  is  ex- 
posed to  the  misdirections  of  human  ignorance, 
human  selfishness,  and  ambitious  human  rival- 


204         RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

ries.  A  mistake  quite  common  in  historic 
statement  is  to  make  the  Church  a  synonym 
for  Christianity.  The  two  terms  are  not 
synonymous.  The  Church,  which  ought  to 
represent  the  true  household  of  faith,  has  too 
often  in  its  counsels,  its  enactments,  and  in 
the  very  spirit  of  its  conduct  shown  itseK 
untrue  and  a  betrayer  of  its  Divine  Master. 
Historically,  the  Church  has  been  much  in- 
fluenced, much  affected  in  tone  and  color,  by 
the  thought  and  customs  of  the  civilizations 
through  which  it  has  made  its  way.  As  I 
write,  my  study  windows  look  out  upon  the 
beautiful  Susquehannah,  a  river  justly  famed 
for  its  picturesque  character.  But  this  river 
drains  wide  mountain  sheds.  In  seasons  of 
heavy  rains  the  soils  of  these  mountains  are 
washed  down,  and  they  impart  to  the  waters 
of  the  river,  ordinarily  clear,  their  own  colors. 
So  the  Church  in  many  periods  of  its  history 
has  been  so  interfused  by  the  spirit  of  worldli- 
ness,  so  toned  and  tempered  by  the  thought 
and  customs  of  its  environment,  as  to  leave 
it  only  with  an  impaired  and  enfeebled  quality 
as  the  true  representative  of  Christianity. 

It  has  seemed  both  a  historic  and  a  vital 
necessity  that  Christianity  all  along  the  ages 
should  in  periods  reassert  its  own  pure  and 
divine  life.     No  oppositions  from  without,  no 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  W5 

perversions  from  within,  have  been  able  to 
prevent  the  dynamic  uprising,  the  irresistible 
assertion,  from  time  to  time,  of  its  own  native 
and  life-renewing  power.  Such  periods  are 
familiarly  known  as  revivals,  or  reformations. 
As  in  nature,  however  murky  the  skies,  or 
however  dark  and  menacing  the  clouds,  even 
though  the  change  be  marked  by  lightnings  and 
thunders,  the  storms  are  driven  away,  and  the 
sun  breaks  forth  in  unclouded  splendor;  so, 
every  now  and  then,  however  vicious  the  per- 
version, or  however  accumulated  and  dense  the 
obscurities,  Christianity  has  asserted  the  power 
to  clear  its  own  spiritual  skies. 

Such  a  period  was  that  of  the  Wesleyan 
Revival  in  England.  Dr.  Cadman  has  char- 
acterized this  revival  as  "an  almost  unparalleled 
transformation  of  the  English  national  char- 
acter effected  under  the  impulse  of  a  revival  of 
Christianity."  It  is  a  common  agreement  of 
all  historians  who  have  treated  the  subject 
that  prior  to  this  movement  the  spiritual  life  of 
the  Church  in  England  was  in  most  lamentable 
decline.  English  deism  was  doubtless  a  fruitful 
source  of  reenforcement  to  French  atheism. 
The  Encyclopedists  of  France,  armed  with  every 
weapon  of  "eloquence,  poetry,  humor,  and 
satire,"  deliberately  sought  utterly  to  banish  all 
traces  of  Christian  thought  from  the  national 


206        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

literature.  Their  influence  swept  over  the 
nation  "Hke  a  sirocco,  withering  not  only  the 
sentiments  of  religion,  but  the  instincts  of  hu- 
manity, and  subverting  at  last,  in  common 
ruin,  the  altar,  the  throne,  and  the  moral 
protections  of  domestic  life."  This  atheistic 
fury  of  French  thought  reacted  upon  England 
until  its  destructive  force  had  wellnigh  sub- 
merged the  popular  religious  sentiment  of  the 
nation.  English  clergymen,  both  Anglican  and 
Nonconformist,  had  become  practically  skep- 
tical and  spiritually  inert.  They  gave  chief 
attention  to  the  shibboleths  of  systems,  to 
ecclesiastical  subsidiaries,  while  the  crying 
crimes  and  the  perishing  moral  life  of  surround- 
ing communities  received  from  them  no  arrest- 
ing voice.  The  regenerating  power  of  Chris- 
tianity, as  though  it  were  a  dead  body  from 
which  the  living  soul  had  escaped,  seemed  lost 
to  the  Church. 

From  many  contemporary  testimonies  I  quote 
briefly  as  follows:  Of  this  period  Wesley  asks: 
"What  is  the  present  characteristic  of  the  Eng- 
hsh  nation.^  It  is  ungodliness.  Ungodliness  is 
our  universal,  our  constant,  our  peculiar  char- 
acter." "Watts  declares  that  there  was  a 
general  decay  of  vital  religion  in  the  hearts  and 
lives  of  men;  that  this  declension  of  piety  and 
virtue    was    common     among    Dissenters    and 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  207 

Churchmen;  that  it  was  a  general  matter  of 
mournful  observation  among  all  who  lay  the 
cause  of  God  to  heart;  and  he  called  upon 
every  one  to  use  all  possible  efforts  for  the  re- 
covery of  dying  religion  in  the  world J^  Arch- 
bishop Seeker  says:  "In  this  we  cannot  be  mis- 
taken, that  an  open  and  professed  disregard 
has  become,  through  a  variety  of  unhappy 
causes,  the  distinguishing  character  of  the 
present  age.  .  .  .  Such  are  dissoluteness  and 
contempt  of  principle  in  the  higher  part  of  the 
world,  and  the  profligacy,  intemperance,  and 
fearlessness  of  committing  crimes,  in  the  lower, 
as  must,  if  this  torrent  of  impiety  stop  not,  be- 
come absolutely  fatal.  .  .  .  Christianity  is  rid- 
iculed and  railed  at  with  very  little  reserve,  and 
the  teachers  of  it  without  any  at  all."  The 
great  Bishop  Butler  said:  "It  has  come  to  be 
taken  for  granted  that  Christianity  is  no  longer 
a  subject  of  inquiry;  but  that  it  is  now  at  length 
discovered  to  be  fictitious.  And,  accordingly, 
it  is  treated  as  if  in  the  present  age,  this  were  an 
agreed  point  among  all  persons  of  discernment, 
and  nothing  remained  but  to  set  it  up  as  a 
subject  for  mirth  and  ridicule." 

Dr.  S.  Parkes  Cadman,  in  his  recent  book. 
The  Three  Religious  Leaders  of  Oxford,  quotes 
from  a  publication  calling  for  a  "National  Re- 
form of  Manners,"  as  follows:  "All  men  agree 


^08        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

that  atheism  and  prof  aneness  never  got  such  a 
high  ascendant  as  at  this  day.  A  thick  gloom- 
iness hath  overspread  our  horizon  and  our  hght 
looks  like  the  evening  of  the  world — vice  and 
wickedness  abound  in  every  place;  drunkenness 
and  lewdness  escape  unpunished;  our  ears  in 
most  companies  are  filled  with  imprecations  of 
damnation;  and  the  corners  of  our  streets  every- 
where the  horrible  sounds  of  oaths,  curses,  and 
blasphemous  execrations . "  ^ 

It  was  in  such  an  age  as  this,  and  in  such  an 
England,  that  three  Oxford-educated  young 
men  emerged  from  their  cloistered  life  to  inau- 
gurate one  of  the  great  spiritual  campaigns  of 
history.  John  and  Charles  Wesley,  George 
Whitefield:  these  men,  diversely  gifted,  were 
swayed  by  a  common  and  irresistible  impulse. 
They  had  come,  nearly  simultaneously,  into  a 
clear  and  intense  experience  of  the  spiritual  life. 
From  this  experience  was  dated  for  each  of 
them  his  prophetic  mission.  The  love  of  God 
transmuting  itself  into  a  Christlike  passion  for 
the  salvation  of  men  burned  as  a  consuming 
fire  in  their  very  bones.  In  a  tireless  and  re- 
sistless zeal,  they  summoned  England  to  re- 
pentance,   preaching    the    gospel    of    a    divine 


^  For  a  vivid  picture  of  the  social  and  moral  conditions  of 
England  in  this  general  period,  I  refer  the  reader  to  Dr. 
Cadman's.book,  pp.  240-258. 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  209 

redemption  from  sin,  urging  upon  all  men  of  all 
ranks  obedience  to  the  conditions  of  the  trans- 
formed spiritual  life  and  the  blessedness  of 
heavenly  fellowship.  These  men  lived  the 
lives  of  saints,  pure  in  spirit  and  conduct,  un- 
selfish in  motive,  unceasing  in  toil,  pouring 
themselves  out  in  prodigal  ministries  for  the 
poor,  the  sinful,  and  the  ignorant;  approving 
themselves  as  very  apostles  of  a  divine  salvation 
to  a  lost  world. 

And  what  were  the  fruits  of  it  all.^  Upon  the 
humble  and  toiling  masses  of  England,  in  fac- 
tories and  mines,  many  of  whom  were  not  only 
ignorant,  but  profane,  intemperate,  dissolute, 
there  set  in  a  great  tide  of  new  and  beneficent 
life.  Under  its  transforming  touch  a  multitude 
of  the  profane  became  devout  of  speech,  the  in- 
temperate became  sober,  the  immoral  pure  and 
clean  of  life.  Hundreds  of  families  that  were 
godless,  in  grateful  remembrance  of  what  had 
been  done  for  their  homes,  reared  altars  of 
worship.  Uncounted  numbers  took  on  new 
and  pure  ideals  for  life  and  conduct.  Religious 
societies  were  multiplied.  Habits  of  church- 
going  and  of  public  worship  became  a  new 
order  in  many  communities.  The  Bible,  which 
had  been  a  neglected  and  forgotten  book,  began 
to  be  searched  by  the  masses,  as  containing  for 
them  the  very  words  of  life  eternal.     Cleanli- 


210        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

ness  and  comfort,  suitable  raiment  and  right- 
mindedness,  superseded  the  squalor  and  naked- 
ness of  poverty  and  the  vacant-mindedness  and 
moral  paralysis  which  are  the  sure  products  of 
dissolute  living.  Such  are  some  of  the  direct 
fruits  of  the  Wesley  an  Revival  upon  the  plains 
of  England's  humbler  life. 

In  the  region  of  faith  and  morals  this  revival 
introduced  a  new  atmosphere  into  the  national 
thought.  The  English  Church  itself,  slow  to 
respond,  and  slower  still  to  render  due  acknowl- 
edgments to  the  sources,  was  morally  forced  to 
set  its  face  toward  new  spiritual  standards,  and 
to  enter  upon  renewed  spiritual  ministries. 
The  moral  indifference,  the  spiritual  skepticism, 
the  purblind  worldliness,  in  all  the  high  places 
of  England  were  shaken  to  the  very  foundations. 
The  testimony  of  more  than  one  historian  is  on 
record  to  the  conviction  that  this  revival  saved 
England  from  an  experience  on  her  own  soil  of 
a  destructive  social  and  political  cyclone  like 
that  of  the  French  Revolution. 

But  the  moral  fountains  that  found  release 
in  the  Wesleyan  Revival  have  proved  the  un- 
failing sources  of  spiritual  streams  which  con- 
tinue richly  to  flow  outward  into  all  the  world. 
Wherever  Wesleyanism  has  gone  there  has 
sprung  up  an  unbroken  series  of  beneficent  in- 
stitutions.    It  has  reenforced   itself  on   every 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  211 

hand  by  the  agencies  of  popular  education  and 
enhghtenment.  It  has  pioneered  great  mis- 
sionary movements,  the  outcome  of  which  to- 
day is  an  ever-widening  Christian  empire  with 
its  seats  securely  established  in  the  capitals  of 
the  world's  paganism.  Methodism  is  to-day 
world-wide.  It  numbers  many  millions  in  its 
constituencies.  Wherever  this  force  has  gone 
it  has  held  high  the  sanctions  of  social  right- 
eousness, justice,  domestic  purity,  holiness  of 
personal  life.  Wherever  it  has  gone  it  has 
shown  itself  implacable  to  the  iniquities  that 
blight  human  welfare,  against  political  corrup- 
tion, against  business  dishonesty,  against  traffic 
in  strong  drink,  against  the  gambling  den  and 
the  brothel.  It  has  relentlessly  denounced 
evil  amusements,  amusements  of  a  kind  to 
corrupt  the  youthful  imagination  and  to  deaden 
the  moral  sense.  The  Wesleyan  movement,  in 
its  distinctive  character,  has  won  for  itself  wide 
territories  which  it  has  peopled  with  the  habita- 
tions of  righteousness  and  of  gladness.  It  has 
been  the  fruitful  creator  of  song  which  has 
voiced  itself  in  notes  of  spiritual  triumph  and 
joy.  Its  life  to-day  is  more  than  ever  prophetic. 
It  carries  in  its  present  movements  the 
prophecy  of  large  place  among  the  forces  which 
shall  witness  the  final  triumph  in  all  the  earth 
of  the  beneficent  kingdom  of  Jesus  Christ.     This 


^H        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

cause,  let  it  not  be  forgotten,  had  its  initial 
inspirations — and  the  sources  of  its  sustained 
and  ever-growing  power  have  remained  the 
same — in  personal  religious  experience.  Mr. 
Lecky,  referring  to  Wesley's  experience  of  a 
"strange  heart- warming"  in  the  Aldersgate 
meeting,  says:  "It  is,  however,  scarcely  an  ex- 
aggeration to  say  that  the  scene  which  took 
place  in  that  humble  meeting  in  Aldersgate 
Street  forms  an  epoch  in  English  history.  The 
conviction  which  then  flashed  upon  one  of  the 
most  powerful  and  most  active  intellects  in 
England  is  the  true  source  of  English" — he 
might  have  said  of  world — "Methodism."  This 
movement  has  wrought,  and  is  still  immeasur- 
ably working,  untold  fruits  of  human  weal. 
There  seems  nothing  for  a  pragmatic  philosophy 
to  say  of  it,  save  that  it  furnishes  the  most  in- 
contestable proof  of  the  divine  character  of 
Christianity. 


IX 

THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST 

(continued) 


For  what  is  a  man  profited,  if  he  shall  gain  the  whole 
world,  and  lose  his  own  soul?  or  what  shall  a  man  give  in 
exchange  for  his  soul? — Matthew  16.  26. 

From  the  Protestant  point  of  view  religious  individualism 
is  legitimate,  and  inseparable  from  every  higher  form  of 
religion,  in  so  far  as  it  asserts  the  right  and  the  duty  of  the 
individual  to  enter  into  direct  communion  with  God,  to  think 
freely  about  religious  matters,  to  join  or  not  to  join  such 
and  such  a  religious  society,  and  in  so  far  as  it  asserts  the 
decisive  influence  of  the  great  religious  individualities  on  the 
historic  march  of  religions.  Religious  individualism,  how- 
ever, runs  the  risk  of  weakening  religion,  when  it  does  not 
recognize  its  social  past,  its  origin  in  beliefs  common  to  all 
the  members  of  a  society  and  the  inevitable  connections 
between  the  religious  society  and  the  political  society — con- 
nections which  are  beneficial  when  they  are  based  on  respect 
for  the  real  nature  of  the  two  institutions. — Professor 
Christian  Eugene  Ehrhardt. 

More  and  more  it  becomes  apparent  that  for  knowledge 
and  help  and  hope  concerning  the  deepest  things  of  God 
and  life  and  destiny  we  must  depend  on  Jesus  Christ  or 
abandon  ourselves  to  apathy  or  despair.  ...  A  vast  body 
of  forces  and  impulses  tend  to  drag  men  downward.  Men 
are  of  the  earth  by  one  side  of  their  nature;  and  the  earth 
draws  and  claims  its  own.  Hence  the  sense-life  proves  so 
attractive.  And  many  are  found  who  persistently  claim  that 
sense-life  is  all.  On  this  plane  selfishness  and  animalism 
soon  develop;  and  the  strong  begin  to  think  meanly  of  the 
weak  and  to  oppress  the  weak;  and  caste  is  born;  and  op- 
pression and  tyranny  go  hand  in  hand  with  animalism  for  the 
destruction  of  humanity.  This  tendency  has  been  manifold 
in  manifestation,  but  it  is  ever  the  same  in  spirit,  and  it  is 
far  enough  from  being  finally  cast  out.  And  the  most 
powerful  agent  against  it  is  the  life  and  words  of  Jesus 
Christ.  He  has  borne  the  most  effective  testimony  to  the 
supreme  worth  of  the  individual  man,  and  delivered  the 
most  effective  rebuke  to  all  attempts  to  degrade  him. 

— Professor  Borden  Parker  Bowne. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST 

(continued) 

3.  We  may  profitably  inquire  as  to  the  prac- 
tical values  of  the  Christian  ideal  for  individual 
welfare.  There  has  been  age-long  controversy 
between  the  constituted  authorities  of  systems 
and  individual  rights.  In  primitive  systems 
the  individual  was  absorbed  in  the  clan.  In 
ancient  family  and  tribal  governments  the 
father  or  the  recognized  chief  exercised  despotic 
authority  over  individuals  and  the  community. 
Individualism,  in  the  last  analysis,  means  self- 
sovereignty,  physical,  intellectual,  and  spiritual 
self -direction.  Christianity  is  eminently  an  in- 
dividualistic religion.  Christ  laid  great  stress 
upon  individual  worth.  It  can  be  said  that  the 
chief  purpose  of  his  Church  is  to  secure,  to  con- 
serve, and  to  nurture  individual  salvation. 

Christ's  uniform  treatment  of  the  individual 
harmonizes  with  this  fundamental  view.  He 
was  always  reverent  in  his  treatment  of  human 
nature.  He  saw  in  every  man,  under  whatso- 
ever  guise,  divine  potentialities.     There   were 

215 


216        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

none  so  poor,  so  sinful,  so  abject,  and  so  appar- 
ently hopeless,  as  to  be  beyond  the  range  of  his 
sympathetic  and  reverent  treatment.  Christ, 
in  all  his  relations  to  humanity,  gave  not  the 
slightest  countenance  to  the  artificial  and 
supercilious  distinctions  of  social  caste.  In  his 
scales  the  soul  of  a  slave  would  outweigh  the 
values  of  the  physical  constellations. 

The  Church,  unfortunately,  has  not  always 
conserved  Christ's  measurements  of  the  worth 
and  rights  of  the  individual.  The  Church  of 
Rome,  arrogating  to  itself  the  absolutism  of  the 
empire,  has  assumed  to  assert  its  own  authority 
as  against  all  values  and  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual conscience  and  of  private  thinking.  It 
assumes  to  hold  in  custody  the  very  keys  to 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  the  gates  of  which  at 
its  own  sovereign  will  it  can  open  or  shut 
against  the  individual.  Throughout  much  of 
its  history  this  Church  has  assumed  to  dictate 
the  very  articles  of  intellectual  belief  and  of 
religious  faith,  to  which  the  individual  must 
subscribe  on  pain,  if  he  should  refuse,  of  excom- 
munication from  the  kingdom  of  grace  and 
glory.  Some  of  the  most  appalling  chapters 
in  history  are  those  which  record  the  subsidizing 
by  this  Church  of  the  secular  arm  for  the  in- 
fliction of  torture  and  destruction  upon  those 
whom  it  has  denounced  as  heretics. 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  217 

The  Reformation,  even  under  Luther's  lead- 
ership, effected  only  a  partial  release  from  the 
abuses  which  Rome  had  assumed  sovereignly 
and  habitually  to  inflict  against  the  rights  of  the 
individual  conscience.  But  one  of  the  facts 
on  which  Luther  insisted  as  fundamental  was 
that  moral  obligation  finally  rests  with  the 
individual.  In  his  view  the  only  activities  of 
moral  value  were  those  volitionally  performed. 
Kant,  probably  more  than  any  other  single 
philosopher,  has  influenced  modern  thought. 
With  him,  the  view  is  central  that  morality  is 
personal,  and  that  its  chief  function  relates  to 
the  freedom  and  dignity  of  the  individual. 

Organization  and  individualism  would  seem 
to  be  the  opposite  poles  of  society.  Both 
should  exist  without  antagonism,  each  serving 
the  proper  functions  of  the  other.  The  ques- 
tion is  as  to  the  sane  coordination  of  these  two 
factors.  Individualism,  carried  to  the  extreme, 
means  social  and  civil  anarchy.  Organization, 
government,  unlimited  by  restrictions  which 
conserve  individual  rights,  means  despotism. 
Broadly,  the  motive  of  despotism  has  inflexibly 
held  to  the  subordination  of  the  individual  by 
the  Church  or  the  state.  The  strife  between 
authority  and  the  individual  has  been  a  stand- 
ing conflict  in  history.  The  "Divine  Right  of 
Kings"  and  the  "Infalhble  Church"  stand  for 


218        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

forces  which  in  large  part  have  always  with- 
stood the  highest  rights  of  the  individual. 

There  must  be  a  rational  meeting-ground 
between  organized  authority  and  the  legitimate 
rights  of  the  individual.  Organized  govern- 
ment there  must  be.  Within  rational  limits, 
it  is  an  imperative  duty  of  the  individual  to 
loyally  support  government.  The  government 
polices  and  guards  his  rights.  He  enjoys  the 
protection  and  security  of  its  power.  The 
community  is  safe  and  sane  under  its  common 
rule.  Government  affords  scope  for  the  play 
of  the  patriotic  instinct.  No  sane  individual 
will  deny  obligation  to,  or  withhold  loyalty 
from,  an  equitable  government.  The  real  pith 
of  the  question  inheres  in  what  is  the  true 
function  of  government  in  relation  to  the  indi- 
vidual. The  true  function  of  government  is  to 
guarantee  the  orderly  ongoing  of  society.  It 
institutes  and  authoritatively  inflicts  penalties 
against  marauders  and  the  lawless  disturbers 
of  public  and  domestic  peace.  It  institutes  a 
great  machinery  of  public  service,  which  it  sup- 
ports by  a  system  of  taxation  upon  the  citizens. 
It  creates  public  buildings  for  governmental 
uses,  builds  public  highways,  conducts  postal 
systems,  supports  systems  of  public  education, 
and  institutes  many  eleemosynary  agencies 
which   are  supported  from   the  public  funds. 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  219 

The  ultimate  function  of  government  is  that 
of  highest  service  to  the  common  good.  In 
the  last  resort,  this  involves  the  best  possible 
service  and  protection  in  the  interests  of  indi- 
vidual rights  and  liberties.  While  author- 
itatively forbidding  interference  by  the  indi- 
vidual with  the  rights  and  duties  of  others, 
it  guarantees  to  him  protection  and  scope  in 
the  largest  legitimate  exercise  of  his  own 
individuality.  The  individual  measures  at  once 
both  the  highest  and  lowest  points  of  value  in 
the  community  life.  The  real  value  of  the 
community  itself  is  best  measured  by  the 
quality  of  the  individual  units  bred  in  its 
atmospheres. 

War  has  been  a  ruthless  destroyer  of  indi- 
vidual rights.  Its  hordes  of  captives,  including 
men,  women,  and  children,  have  too  generally 
been  subjected  to  gross  indignities  and  cruel- 
ties. Slavery  is  as  old  as  history,  but  to  the 
slave,  even  under  vogue  of  the  most  humane 
conditions,  there  were  never  accorded  the 
proper  rights  of  the  individual.  While  slavery 
in  its  older  forms  has  been  pretty  generally 
banished  from  civilization,  it  still  remains  true 
that  there  inhere  in  the  industrial  organisms 
many  conditions  decidedly  unfavorable  to  the 
best  development  of  the  individual.  The  cor- 
porations    are    organized     for     profit-making. 


220        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

Upon  this  end  their  entire  machinery  is  relent- 
lessly focused.  Thousands  of  their  workers 
are  engaged  in  routine  and  most  uninspirational 
pursuits.  There  is  little  or  nothing  in  their 
vocations  to  kindle  ideals  or  to  stimulate  to 
high  achievement.  These  workers  must  accept 
such  wages  as  the  corporation  can  be  induced 
to  pay.  The  corporation  management  itself  is 
essentially  selfish.  This  is  the  underlying 
secret  of  the  widespread  alienation  rife  in  the 
industrial  world  as  between  capital  and  labor. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  dominant  condi- 
tions of  the  industrial  world,  as  now  organized, 
are  not  favorable  to  the  highest  development 
of  the  individual  laborer.  In  so  far  as  this 
is  true,  it  is  obvious  that  large  areas  of  bus- 
iness, under  existing  conditions,  are  as  yet 
far  from  being  conducted  on  a  Christian  basis. 
That  there  is  so  much  in  modern  business 
methods  that  tends  both  to  depress  and  to 
neutralize  the  individual  toiler  is  not  to  the 
credit  of  the  present  civilization.  I  am  quite 
aware  that  hard,  grasping,  and  surfeited  capital 
will  be  disposed  promptly  to  construe  and  to 
dismiss  all  this  as  the  language  of  an  imprac- 
ticable dreamer.  But  God  in  his  heaven  is 
as  much  interested  in  the  poorest  laborer  in 
the  factory  as  in  any  autocrat  of  high  finance. 
And  God's  method  with  the  world  will  finally 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  221 

win  such  universal  approval  as  to  put  to 
shame  the  motives  of  conscienceless  money. 
This  is  God's  world,  and  all  the  men  and 
women  in  it  are  God's  children.  God  made 
nature  bountiful.  On  the  basis  of  the  equitable 
distribution  of  nature's  products,  there  should 
be  no  starving  children,  no  shelterless  families, 
none  who  are  the  abject  slaves  of  overfed  and 
heartless  capital.  There  is  a  widening  prophetic 
light  moving  upon  the  age  in  which  can  be 
clearly  seen  the  coming  of  a  better  day  for 
industrial  humanity.  In  God's  calendar  this 
day  bears  definite  date,  and  its  dawning  is 
as  sure  as  the  coming  of  to-morrow.  In  God's 
larger  diagram  of  civilization  humanity  is 
treated  as  a  democracy  in  which  every  man 
inherits  the  birthright  of  citizenship.  Any 
agency,  be  it  church,  government,  plutocracy, 
industrial  despotism,  which  stands  in  the  way 
of  the  highest  development  of  the  individual, 
stands  by  so  much  as  opposed  to  the  reign 
of  Christ  in  the  earth. ^ 

Let  us  now  more  specifically  ask:  What  are 

^  This  field  of  fact  and  thought  is  too  wide  for  present  dis- 
cussion, and  can  here  only  be  referred  to.  A  general  fact, 
however,  should  be  guarded.  Whatever  improvements  may 
come  in  the  equitable  adjustments  of  society,  the  time  will 
never  come  when  demerit  will  not  reap  its  own  reward;  when 
thriftlessness,  intemperance,  immorality,  and  crime  will  not 
receive  the  just  doom  of  outlawry.  As  long  as  crime  in  any 
form  exists  in  the  earth  the  mills  of  God's  justice  will  never 
cease  to  grind. 


222         RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

the  practical  relations  of  Christianity  to  the 
individual?  This  is  not  to  ask  concerning 
things  which  can  be  measured  in  material 
values.  It  is  not  to  ask  concerning  gold  and 
silver,  bank  stocks,  or  wealth  in  merchandise 
or  lands.  It  is  to  inquire  concerning  God's 
spiritual  program  for,  his  practical  spiritual 
dealings  with,  humanity.  Man  is  potentially 
God's  child.  He  is  made  in  God's  intellectual 
image,  therefore,  capable  of  thinking  God's 
thoughts.  He  is  endowed  with  the  faculties 
of  a  moral  and  worshipful  nature,  therefore 
capable  of  moral  and  spiritual  fellowship  with 
God.  He  is  immortal,  therefore  potentially 
capable  of  infinite  progress  in  knowledge,  of 
an  ever-deepening  spiritual  communion  with, 
and  likeness  to,  God.  Nothing  less  than  this 
is  included  in  the  Christian  concept  of  man. 
But,  if  this  standard  is  accepted,  it  utterly 
displaces  all  lesser  measurements  of  human 
worth.  In  this  high  light  it  is  clear  that  any 
agency  or  system,  which  of  choice  or  delib- 
erately works  detriment  to  the  individual  or 
to  the  community  of  individuals  for  the  sake 
of  promoting  the  selfish  ends  of  another  indi- 
vidual, or  a  community  of  individuals,  thereby 
works  a  hurtful  encroachment  against  the 
moral  order. 

If  Christ's  program  for  man  is  large,  he  also 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  223 

makes  high  and  exacting  demands  upon  his 
subjects.  The  Christian  is  to  hve  in  the  pur- 
pose of  perpetual  separation  from  wrongdoing, 
from  purposed  sin.  He  is  to  cherish  inward 
purity,  cleanness  of  motive  at  the  source  of 
action,  at  the  very  seat  of  desire.  Love  toward 
God  and  toward  man  must  be  regnant  in  his 
life.  He  is  to  be  unselfish  in  relation  to  his 
fellows,  doing  good  to  all  men  as  he  has  oppor- 
tunity. He  is  to  be  forgiving  in  spirit,  not 
returning  evil  for  evil,  or  injury  for  injury. 
He  is  a  sworn  soldier  of  the  cross;  a  joint 
partner  with  Christ  in  a  mission  of  good  for 
all  the  human  world. 

If  this  scheme  should  seem  to  ordinary  vision 
overtopping  and  impracticable,  it  is  not  to  be 
forgotten  that  no  man  is  asked  to  realize  it 
in  his  own  unaided  strength.  As  a  living  and 
ever-present  example  there  stands  One  before 
him  whose  life  was  historically  a  faultless 
exemplification  of  the  perfect  Christian  ideal. 
Corresponding  to  this  outward  visible  Per- 
fection, there  is  assured  to  the  Christian  an 
inward  spiritual  transformation  of  life,  wrought 
by  nothing  less  than  the  direct  incoming  of 
God  into  the  life  of  the  individual  soul.  This 
divine  in-coming  brings  to  the  soul  reenforce- 
ment  against  the  assaults  of  evil  temptation, 
begetting  within  all  holy  and  benevolent  de- 


224        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

sires,  filial  confidence  toward  God,  a  stalwart 
hope  of  final  triumph  over  sin  and  death,  and 
of  blessed  heirship  in  immortality.  We  shall 
reach  a  true  measurement  of  Christ's  estimate 
of  human  worth  only  as  we  have  insight  into 
his  regenerative  mission  for  the  individual. 
Christ  literally  begets  in  his  disciples  a  new 
and  divine  spiritual  life.  The  natural  man 
must  be  "born  again,"  born  from  on  high, 
newly  begotten  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  This 
conception  is  either  absurd  or  it  is  divine. 
But  it  works  pragmatically  and  infallibly  in 
human  experience. 

The  Socialistic  philosophy  lays  great  stress 
upon  the  regenerative  power  of  environment. 
Christ  values  environment  only  as  it  ministers 
to  character.  If  men  are  evil  in  themselves, 
no  environment  can  save  them.  A  rich  environ- 
ment only  gives  to  men  of  vicious  character 
and  of  evil  appetites  larger  opportunity  to 
indulge  their  evil  propensities.  Swine  are 
swine  even  though  housed  in  a  mahogany  sty 
and  fed  from  a  silver  trough.  Christ  proposes 
to  uplift  the  human  world  only  on  one  divine 
basis.  He  plans  to  install  the  kingdom  of 
God  on  earth  through  the  consecrated  living 
of  spiritually  regenerated  men. 

Christ's  method  works  in  history.  If  any 
man  is  skeptical  of  this,  his  skepticism  only 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  225 

witnesses  to  the  obscureness  of  his  own  vision. 
Nothing  is  historically  clearer  than  that  mul- 
titudes of  the  finest  moral  heroes  of  the  race 
have  lived  and  have  grown  spiritually  great 
and  strong  under  Christian  inspirations.  On 
the  broadest  scale  the  Christian  philosophy,  a 
philosophy  which  presses  upon  every  soul  the 
vision  and  sanction  of  eternal  things,  has  been 
found  equal  to  the  development  and  main- 
tenance of  highest  moral  heroism  both  for 
the  individual  and  for  civilization  at  large. 
The  men  most  consciously  in  partnership  with 
God  have  always  been  the  peerless  prophets 
of  the  world's  moral  progress. 

And  now,  let  us  ask,  What  does  Christianity 
do  for  the  disfranchised  man.^  We  have  heard 
much  of  the  slave,  of  the  forlorn  poor,  of  the 
man  from  whom  opportunity  has  been  forced 
by  a  doom  to  the  drudgery  of  dwarfing  toil. 
It  must  be  confessed  that  society  in  its  natural 
processes  does  very  little  to  brighten  and  to 
inspire  the  lives  of  these  men.  Their  enforced 
lot  and  environment  do  not  in  themselves 
minister  to  high  and  cheering  hopes.  But 
Christianity  does  come  to  all  these  classes  to 
make  them  sharers  in  the  divinest  destinies. 
It  recognizes  no  social  castes.  Its  ministries 
of  grace  are  characterized  by  no  favoritism  as 
between  king  and  subject,  as  between  master 


226        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

and  slave.  Before  the  cross  of  Christ  all 
alike  stand  on  a  plane  of  common  peership, 
all  alike  are  the  heirs  of  equal  privilege,  in  the 
spiritual  citizenship  of  the  Kingdom. 

It  is  not  easy  for  us  to  translate  into  modern 
thinking  what  must  have  been  the  sense  of 
anomaly  and  wonder  created  by  Saint  Paul's 
impassioned  plea  to  Philemon  in  behalf  of 
Onesimus,  a  runaway  slave.  Philemon  was  a 
high-minded  man,  and  doubtless  a  warm  per- 
sonal friend  of  Saint  Paul.  Onesimus,  as  a 
runaway  slave,  by  all  the  code,  merited  the 
most  drastic  punishment.  But  in  Rome,  the 
great  refuge  for  the  social  outlaw,  he  had 
come  in  contact  with  Saint  Paul,  and  had 
experienced  Christian  conversion.  Under  the 
promptings  of  a  new  conscience  he  felt  that 
he  must  return  to  his  master.  And  this  is  the 
occasion  of  Paul's  letter  to  Philemon.  How 
does  he  write  concerning  this  slave  .^  He  calls 
him  his  own  son,  one  whom  he  had  spiritually 
begotten  while  he  himself  was  in  the  bonds 
of  his  Roman  imprisonment.  He  pleads  with 
Philemon  to  forgive  Onesimus,  and  to  receive 
him  not  as  a  slave  but  even  as  a  brother  beloved 
both  in  the  flesh  and  in  the  Lord.  Nothing 
could  be  more  in  contrast  with  both  the  pagan 
spirit  and  custom  of  the  age  than  the  spirit 
of  this  letter. 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  227 

It  is  well  known  to  every  student  of  Chris- 
tian history  that  one  of  the  standing  miracles 
of  early  Christianity  was  the  spiritual  con- 
version and  transformation  of  the  slave.  Many 
of  these  whose  bodies  were  in  physical  bondage 
were  born  into  lives  of  spiritual  freedom  and 
sonship  in  Christ  Jesus.  Many  of  those  whose 
physical  lot  was  that  of  slaves  have  left  undy- 
ing names  in  the  hero  lists  of  the  early  Church. 
Among  those  counted  as  the  world's  poor  the 
inspirations  of  Christian  experience  have  made 
the  lives  of  multitudes  pure,  lovely,  gentle, 
heroic.  Christ  never  denounced  wealth  in 
itself  considered.  Some  of  his  cherished  friends 
were  prosperous  in  temporal  things.  But  when 
he  would  picture  the  most  vivid  lesson  on  the 
issues  of  human  destiny,  he  instituted  a  com- 
parison between  a  rich  man  and  a  destitute 
beggar  lying  at  the  rich  man's  gate.  The 
beggar  died,  and  was  carried  by  angels  to 
Abraham's  bosom.  The  rich  man  also  died, 
and  lifted  up  his  eyes  in  torments.  The  de- 
cisive thing  in  this  lesson  is  not  that  the  one 
was  rich  and  the  other  poor,  but  that  the 
poor  man  in  temper  and  faith  was  responsive 
to  the  divine  will,  while  Dives,  sumptuously 
fed  and  royally  arrayed,  was  gross  in  soul, 
alien  to  the  divine  approach. 

The  great  revivals  of  Christianity  have  been 


228         RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

responded  to  by  multitudes  of  the  poor.  Among 
these  there  have  been  wrought  marvelous 
transformations  of  character.  Their  social  con- 
ditions and  relationships  have  been  wondrously 
improved,  and  under  the  creative  influence  of 
the  new  life  many  of  the  children  of  the  poor 
have  gone  forth  to  achieve  for  themselves 
careers  of  strength  and  of  influence.  To  every 
man,  however  depressed  by  the  doom  of  unin- 
spirational  toil,  Christianity  comes  with  a 
message  of  divine  cheer.  It  witnesses  to  him 
that  he  is  God's  child.  It  brings  to  him  the 
moral  and  inspirational  support  of  unseen 
spiritual  forces.  It  fills  his  life  with  a  sense 
of  fortitude  and  peace  inspired  from  unearthly 
sources.  It  assures  him  that  there  awaits 
him  a  glorified  immortality  in  which  he  may 
forever  enrich  himself  from  the  infinite  min- 
istries of  God's  grace,  glory,  and  power.  The 
man  so  inspired  becomes  a  moral  hero.  He 
says:  "Whatever  my  present  afflictions,  they 
will  be  brief  at  the  longest,  and  there  awaits 
me  a  far  more  exceeding  and  eternal  weight 
of  glory.  So  I  will  not  look  at  the  things 
which  are  temporal,  but  at  the  things  unseen, 
which  are  eternal."  The  man  whose  soul  has 
been  warmed  by  a  sense  of  spiritual  fellow- 
ship with  Jesus  Christ  as  his  personal  Saviour, 
and    into    whose   convictions    there   has    been 


THE  PRAG:\L\TIC  test  259 

inspired  a  confident  belief  in  Christian  immor- 
tality— this  man  has  at  command,  whatever 
his  material  environment,  whether  he  be  rich 
or  poor  in  this  world's  goods,  the  basis  of 
highest    moral    heroism. 

Nothing  more  clearly  disproves  the  Social- 
istic claim  that  material  abundance  is  essential 
to  good  character  than  the  multitudes  of  sweet 
Christian  homes  among  the  world's  humble 
people.  Every  pastor  of  large  experience 
knows  that  among  the  poor  are  unnumbered 
homes  idyllic  in  domestic  virtue,  homes  inspired 
and  made  beautiful  by  the  cheer  of  high  re- 
ligious faith  and  hope,  homes  whose  members 
hold  to  life's  central  convictions,  and  face 
life's  duties  and  conflicts  with  the  fidehty  and 
heroism  of  the  soldier. 

When  Saint  James  would  rebuke  those  who 
toadied  to  the  rich,  but  who  despised  the  poor, 
he  taught  that  they  should  be  no  respecter 
of  persons,  asking,  "Hath  not  God  chosen  the 
poor  of  this  world  rich  in  faith,  and  heirs  of 
the  kingdom  which  he  hath  promised  to  them 
that  love  him.^"  Christianity  when  truly 
experienced,  w^hether  among  the  rich  or  the 
poor  of  this  world,  always  brings  to  its  sub- 
jects social,  intellectual,  and  moral  values  of 
the  highest  order.  It  has  morally  transformed 
and    beautified     more     individual     lives,     has 


230         RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

brought  to  these  hves  a  finer  social  and  spir- 
itual uplift,  has  imparted  to  them  a  rich  peace 
and  a  firm  fortitude,  has  inspired  them  with 
the  divinest  motives  and  hopes  both  for  this 
life  and  the  life  to  come;  and  it  has  done  all 
this  in  a  measure  never  approached  by  all 
the  religions  and  philosophies  outside  of  itself 
in  the  world's  history. 

Christianity,  both  by  what  it  has  accom- 
plished, by  what  it  shows  itself  capable  of 
doing,  and  by  what  it  pledges  itself  to  do,  to 
meet  the  moral  needs  of  all  individuals  and 
on  all  planes  of  human  need,  presents  a  history 
which  calls  for  unanimous  commendation  by 
the  pragmatic  jury. 


X 

THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST 

(concluded) 


Plenteous  grace  with  thee  is  found, 

Grace  to  cover  all  my  sin: 
Let  the  healing  streams  abound; 

Make  and  keep  me  pure  within. 
Thou  of  life  the  fountain  art, 

Freely  let  me  take  of  thee: 
Spring  thou  up  within  my  heart. 

Rise  to  all  eternity. 

— Charles  Wesley. 

Christianity  alone  has  shown  that,  on  the  one  hand,  it 
meets  the  needs  of  the  soul  of  man  as  no  other  religion 
does,  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  it  can  adapt  itself  in  so 
doing  to  varying  conditions  as  no  other  can.  It  appears 
now  as  the  only  religion  that  can  properly  claim  universality. 
— Principal  Alfred  Ernest  Garvie. 

When  I  go  down  to  the  grave  I  can  say,  like  so  many 
others,  "I  have  finished  my  day's  work,"  but  I  cannot  say, 
"I  have  finished  my  life."  My  work  will  begin  again  next 
morning. — Victor  Hugo. 

Looked  at  from  the  outside  we  are  animals  like  the  other 
animals,  having  the  human  form,  indeed,  and  yet  subject 
to  the  same  general  laws  as  the  animal  world — birth  and 
death,  hunger  and  pain,  labor  and  weariness.  But  our 
Christian  faith  holds  that  this  is  only  the  outward  appear- 
ance, not  the  inward,  spiritual  fact.  We  are  now  the  chil- 
dren of  God,  and  it  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be, 
but  we  know  that  when  he  shall  appear  we  shall  be  like 
him,  for  we  shall  see  him  as  he  is.  And  thus  our  life  is 
transformed.  We  are  not  simply  the  highest  in  the  animal 
world,  we  are  also  and  more  essentially  children  of  the 
Highest,  made  in  his  image  likewise,  and  to  go  on  further- 
more with  him;  made,  as  the  old  catechism  had  it,  to  glorify 
God  and  to  enjoy  him  forever,  growing  evermore  into  his 
likeness  and  into  ever-deepening  sympathy  and  fellowship 
with  the  eternal  as  we  go  on  through  the  unending  years, 
until  we  are  "filled  with  the  fullness  of  God."  This  is  the 
true  evolution.     Man  is  making;  he  is  not  yet  made. 

"All   about  him   shadow   still,   but,   while   the   races   flower 

and   Fade, 
Prophet    eyes    may    catch    a    glory    slowly    gaining   on    the 

Shade." 

— Professor  Borden  Parker  Bowne. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST 

(concluded) 

4.  Let  our  final  inquiry  be  as  to  the  suflB- 
ciency  of  Christianity  to  meet  the  needs  of 
man's  spiritual  nature.  If  at  the  highest 
point  of  man's  universal  and  spiritual  needs 
Christianity  should  prove  impotent,  then  there 
might  well  be  hesitancy  in  recommending  it 
to  the  individual  or  to  the  community.  Fail- 
ure, indeed,  at  an^^  point  of  spiritual  need 
would  disprove  its  claim  as  a  supreme  religion. 
Such  failure  has  never  been  shown.  Chris- 
tianity only  and  rightfully  insists  for  the 
demonstration  of  its  values  upon  such  con- 
ditions as  every  science  exacts  for  itself.  The 
scientific  demonstration  is  reached  only  by 
perfect  conformity  to  its  conditioning  require- 
ments. Christianity  works  precisely  in  the 
same  way.  Christ  said:  "If  any  man  will 
do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine, 
whether  it  be  of  God." 

In  the  widest  practical  test,  Christianity 
has  abundantly  proven  itself  equal  to  meeting 

233 


234        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

all  the  moral  needs  of  the  individual  and  of 
the  race.  It  is  scientific  in  its  application.  It 
responds  with  absolute  demonstration  in  all 
cases  where  its  own  conditions  are  faithfully 
met.  It  thus  conforms  to  the  highest  demands 
of  reason.  Reason  accepts,  and  confidently 
bases  its  conclusions  upon,  demonstrated  facts. 
Christianity  openly  and  universally  offers  itself 
to  the  test  of  experience.  On  this  plane  it  is 
thoroughly  scientific  in  method. 

Christianity  works  in  perfect  harmony  with 
the  mental  and  moral  constitution  of  man. 
It  neither  seeks  the  elimination  nor  suppression 
of  any  normal  human  faculty.  It  takes  man's 
mental  and  moral  constitution  just  as  it  is, 
illuminating  the  reason,  purifying  the  motives, 
energizing  the  moral  faculties,  and  quickening 
purpose  for  the  quest  of  a  new  life.  Thus, 
while  furnishing  in  itself  the  superlative  moral 
and  spiritual  ideals,  it  also  appropriates  and 
utilizes  religious  truth  from  whatever  sources. 
While  it  makes  immeasurable  moral  advance 
over  any  other  religious  system,  it  is  never 
found  in  antagonism  to  the  highest  moral 
sense  of  the  race.  It  makes  perfect  appeal 
to  the  universal  religious  nature  of  mankind. 
Its  conditions  have  been  tested  by  repre- 
sentatives of  all  races,  and  among  no  people 
have   they   been   found   to   fail   in   fulfillment 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  235 

of  promise.  As  no  philosophy,  no  science,  no 
other  reHgious  faith  in  the  world's  history, 
Christianity  has  experimentally  demonstrated 
its  power  to  satisfy  the  deepest  spiritual  needs 
of  universal  man.  And  if  on  this  level  it  suc- 
ceeds, it  must  be  accepted  as  satisfying  the 
most  crucial  test  by  which  its  values  can  be 
challenged. 

There  never  was  a  time  perhaps  when  in 
candid  philosophical  thought  the  paramount 
claims  of  man's  spiritual  nature  were  so  clearly 
recognized  as  now.  As  wonderful  and  as 
fruitful  as  may  be  his  intellectual  genius,  this 
is  far  from  the  greatest  thing  about  man. 
His  spiritual  nature  furnishes  the  far  higher 
mark  of  his  kinship  with  the  Divine.  The 
human  intellect  may  make  itself  athletic  in 
grappHng  with  the  problems  of  nature,  but 
there  is  a  hunger  in  the  human  spirit  which 
can  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  the 
life  of  God  in  the  soul.  It  is  coming  more 
and  more  clearly  to  be  discerned  that  man 
as  an  individual,  and  man  socially,  never 
comes  to  his  best,  to  his  noblest  self,  save  when 
his  life  is  directed  by  regenerative  motives 
from  within.  This  alone  is  salvation,  this 
alone  is  the  secret  of  most  worthful  character. 

There  is  a  legitimacy  in  material  satisfactions. 
It  is  a  good  thing  to  be  well  fed  and  well  clothed. 


236        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

It  is  pleasant  to  be  housed  in  capacious,  well- 
appointed,  and  artistic  homes.  It  is  a  good 
thing  to  be  in  command  of  sufficient  means  and 
material  appliances  to  meet  the  physical  con- 
veniences of  life.  Christianity  does  not  extol 
poverty  as  having  intrinsic  virtue  in  itself. 
It  does  bring  unearthly  cheer  and  inspirations 
to  multitudes  whose  lot  is  that  of  poverty. 
Neither,  on  the  other  hand,  does  it  deny 
attainment  of  exalted  virtues  to  those  who  are 
rich  in  this  world's  goods.  The  supreme  diffi- 
culty in  the  situation  is  that  the  nearby  appeal 
to  human  nature  stands  at  the  door  of  the 
senses.  The  demand  for  physical  satisfaction 
is  imperious.  It  asserts  itself  from  our  earliest 
history.  The  multitudes,  it  may  be  said 
human  nature  in  general,  are  under  constant 
and  powerful  temptation  to  seek  life's  chief 
satisfactions  from  material  sources.  This 
temptation  has  asserted  itself  well-nigh  un- 
checked in  many  periods  of  history.  Many 
have  installed  materialism  as  a  chief  good. 
Luxury  has  held  riot  in  high  places. 

The  present,  of  all  periods  in  history,  comes 
nearest  to  being  an  era  of  universal  knowl- 
edge. Science,  art,  an  omnipresent  press,  all 
are  lending  themselves  to  a  world-democracy 
of  intelligence.  Nature,  in  unprecedented  meas- 
ure,  is   yielding   her   native   treasures   to   the 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  237 

increase  of  human  wealth.  Vast  capitahstic 
combinations  are  developing  industrial  pro- 
ductivity beyond  all  the  dreams  of  our  fathers. 
While  intelligence  and  real  culture  were  never 
so  widespread,  it  is  also  true  that  wealth  and 
its  consequent  luxury  were  never  so  prevalent 
in  the  world  as  to-day.  The  world  itself  was 
never  so  attractive  as  now.  Materialism,  with 
whatever  refinements  it  may  keep  company, 
puts  a  mighty  lure  upon  the  age.  The  multi- 
tudes, seeing  the  fatness  and  the  sleekness, 
the  revel  of  appliance  and  plenty,  enjoyed  by 
the  rich,  are  under  exceptional  temptation  to 
believe  that  the  world  of  sense  and  of  pleasure 
is,  after  all,  the  world  chiefly  to  be  sought. 
The  canker  of  this  temptation  has  eaten  deeply 
into  the  life  of  the  wayfaring  masses.  It  is 
doubtless  true  that  the  laborer  never  received 
such  compensation  for  his  toil  as  now.  He 
himself  lives  a  life  of  greater  plenty,  a  life 
nearer  to  the  borders  of  luxury,  than  any  of 
his  predecessors.  But  the  wide  exploitation  of 
wealth  which  he  sees  around  him  has  made 
him  the  most  discontented  laborer  of  the  ages. 
He  has  caught  the  material  infection.  He  has 
accepted  the  belief  that  if  he  himself  could 
only  be  the  possessor  of  wealth,  life  too  with 
him  would  be  supremely  well. 

The  wide  absorption  of  the  age  in  pursuit 


^38        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

of  material  satisfactions  makes  it  an  age  diffi- 
cult of  spiritual  appeal.  The  phenomenal 
development  of  human  power  over  natural 
forces,  the  harnessing  of  these  forces  for  man's 
service,  and  the  consequent  successful  achieve- 
ment of  huge  material  enterprises — all  this 
has  immensely  contributed  to  divert  man's 
attention  from  himself  to  the  world  of  external 
nature.  Nature,  through  science  and  invention, 
has  so  lavishly  laid  down  her  wealth  at  the 
feet  of  man  as  to  confuse  his  vision.  The 
material  and  outward,  with  their  blinding 
glamour,  have  bulked  so  large  as  for  the  time 
being,  at  least,  to  suspend  his  synthesis  of 
values.  The  age  has  vaulted  into  the  saddle 
and  rider  and  hounds  together  have  plunged 
into  the  wilderness  in  pursuit  of  the  game — 
Material  Success. 

This  insanity  of  materialism  is  perhaps  a 
part  of  the  inevitable  price  which  this  age 
must  pay  before  it  can  enter  upon  a  new 
spiritual  era.  No  age  ever  had  on  so  wide  a 
scale,  and  with  such  prodigal  stocks,  so  great 
opportunity  for  testing  the  utmost  values  which 
a  pure  materialism  can  contribute  to  human 
life.  Modern  material  wealth  has  mustered  a 
more  brilliant  revel,  and  has  spread  before  its 
guests  a  far  more  sumptuous  banquet,  than 
were  ever  possible  to  anj^  preceding  age.     But 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  239 

the  after  satiety  and  disgust  of  the  revel  are 
proving  the  same  as  from  all  like  experiments. 
In  all  history  the  guests  have  risen  from  the 
sating  feasts  of  materialism  only  to  realize 
that  they  have  been  feasted  at  a  Circe's  ban- 
quet. Materialism,  with  its  attendant  luxuries, 
has  always  brought  about  the  intellectual  and 
moral  decadence  of  the  people,  has  been  a 
foremost  promoter  of  the  disintegration  of 
civilization  itself.  The  trend  of  present-day 
materialism  proves  no  exception  to  the  historic 
rule. 

r^  Man's  material  life  was  never  so  immense, 
its  achievements  never  so  marvelous,  its  wealth 
never  so  bewildering,  as  now.  But,  in  it  all, 
there  is  no  lesson  clearer  than  its  utter  im- 
potence to  bring  supreme  satisfactions  to  human 
life.  The  vast  materialistic  resources  of  the  age 
have  utterly  failed  alike  to  morally  buttress 
civilization,  to  install  honesty  in  the  business 
world,  to  furnish  worthy  ideals  to  society,  or 
to  satisfy  the  conscious  and  deeper  needs  of 
the  human  soul.  The  charges  of  graft  and  of 
bribery  in  political  life,  of  injustice  and  dis- 
honesty in  business  relations,  the  menace  of 
immorality  and  divorce  in  circles  of  wealth 
and  of  privilege,  were  never  more  rife  than  now. 
The  human  soul  awakes  to  learn  anew  the 
lesson  that  all  this  bulk  and  show  of  material- 


240        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

istic  resource  is  powerless  to  feed  its  deeper 
hunger,  or  to  minister  to  its  larger  life.  The 
soul's  true  citizenship  can  be  realized  only 
in  the  realm  of  the  spiritual.  It  is  made  for 
a  career  larger  than  can  be  confined  within 
material  stagings.  It  inflicts  upon  itself  dis- 
inheritance and  banishment  when  it  elects  to 
remain  aloof  from  divine  fellowships. 

This  sketch  attempts  no  complete  picture. 
It  only  aims,  however  imperfectly,  to  give  a  true 
indication  of  the  nature  and  effects  of  a  pure 
materialism  in  its  relations  to  life  and  character. 
It  would  betray  a  grossly  imperfect  as  well  as 
unjust  measurement  of  the  age  to  deny  the 
large  wealth  of  sane  moral  judgment  and  of 
noble  spiritual  character  which  inhere  in  its 
life.  Probably  in  its  aggregate  life  no  age  in 
history  has  ever  been  so  rich  in  redemptive 
moral  agencies  as  the  present.  A  highly 
significant  indication  is  in  the  fact  that,  even 
within  a  generation,  a  materialistic  philosophy 
which  had  been  largel}^  domesticated  in  pop- 
ular thought,  has  given  place  in  circles  of 
correct  thinking  to  a  philosophy  of  the  spirit. 
Error  is  a  stubborn  thing.  One  of  the  sad 
facts  of  history  is  that  when  it  has  once  be- 
come rooted  it  takes  a  long  time  to  eliminate 
the  poison  of  a  vicious  philosophy  from 
the  popular  mind.     A  false  materialism  may 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  241 

still  find  clamorous  utterance  among  the 
street  and  mob  orators,  but  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  it  no  longer  has  any  footing  in  competent 
philosophic  thought. 

It  is  significant  that  both  Eucken  and 
Bergson,  two  men  who  easily  rank  among  the 
foremost  of  living  philosophers,  each  in  his 
own  way,  hold  as  basic  and  central  a  spiritual 
view  of  the  universe.  These  men  have  not 
traveled  to  their  conclusions  by  the  same  path. 
Nor  are  their  views  identical.  Indeed,  as  is 
true  of  all,  even  the  greatest,  thinkers,  these 
two  men,  wondrous  and  wide  as  is  their  vision, 
are  but  provincial  explorers  in  the  fields  of 
infinite  reality.  But  the  fact  of  real  signifi- 
cance is  that  their  philosophies  alike  take 
initiative  from  spiritual,  and  not  from  ma- 
terialistic, bases. 

Eucken,  in  incisive  and  eloquent  terms,  por- 
trays the  moral  failure  of  the  modern  material- 
istic civilization,  with  all  its  seemingly  limitless 
resourcefulness,  to  meet  the  needs  of  man's 
higher  nature.  He  declares  that  "Modern  life, 
in  particular,  with  its  liberation  of  every  force, 
has  brought  to  the  surface  so  much  that  is 
impure,  unedifying,  and  unworthy,  and  has 
placed  so  clearly  before  our  eyes  the  pettiness 
and  unreality  of  a  merely  human  culture,  that 
it  becomes  continually  more  and  more  hope- 


242        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

less  to  obtain  a  satisfying  type  of  life  upon  this 
basis  and  to  provide  human  existence  with  a 
meaning  and  a  value.  It  is  being  increasingly 
felt  that  there  is  something  in  man  which  this 
immanent  type  of  life  does  not  bring  out,  and 
that  this  undeveloped  element  is  something 
indispensable,  perhaps  the  best  of  all!" 

Eucken  cogently  insists  that  the  only  ulti- 
mate normal  life  of  man,  that  life  for  which 
the  best  that  is  now  within  him  constitutes 
both  a  prophecy  and  a  demand,  that  life 
which  alone  furnishes  the  real  key  and  meaning 
of  man's  being,  can  be  realized  only  by  "a 
transforming  spiritual  culture."  Eucken,  it  is 
to  be  remembered,  is  not  in  the  usual  sense 
an  orthodox  Christian.  But,  negatively,  with 
all  his  knowledge  of  historic  thought,  he  is 
able  to  present  no  source  whence  the  spiritual 
regeneration  of  the  world  shall  come  save 
Christianity.  Toward  Christianity  itself  this 
great  mind  utters  no  pedantic  or  flippant 
views.  He  looks  upon  Christ  as  an  historic 
Character  who  has  changed  the  face  of  the 
world.  In  his  book  Can  We  Still  Be  Chris- 
tians.^^  is  this  passage:  "Our  answer  is  not  only 
that  we  can  be,  but  that  we  must.  But  we 
can  only  be  Christians  if  Christianity  is  recog- 
nized as  a  world-historical  movement  still  in 
flux,   if   it   is   shaken   out   of   its   ecclesiastical 


I 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  243 

vitrification  and  placed  upon  a  broader  basis. 
In  this  lies  the  task  of  our  time  and  the  hope 
of  the  future." 

This  passage  contains  the  very  philosophy  of 
Eucken  concerning  the  spiritual  adequacy  of 
Christianity  for  meeting  the  moral  needs  of 
mankind.  On  the  one  hand,  he  accepts  Chris- 
tianity as  the  supreme  realization  of  the  spir- 
itual ideal;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  seems 
to  fear  that  the  very  life  and  mission  of  Chris- 
tianity itself  are  imperiled  under  their  present 
forms  of  expression.  I  cannot  but  think  that 
it  marks  a  well-nigh  fatal  limitation  even  upon 
Eucken's  grasp  of  the  situation  that  he  con- 
founds, or  at  least  seems  to  confound,  the 
ecclesiastical  forms  of  Christianity  with  the 
genius  and  spirit  of  Christianity  itseK.  Be- 
tween the  two  concepts  there  may  be,  and 
doubtless  is,  a  world-wide  difference.  Ecclesi- 
astical interpretations,  in  large  numbers,  may 
be  thoroughly  superseded  and  become  as 
worthless  as  an  outworn  garment. 

The  spirit  of  Christianity  is  cosmic,  ever- 
creative,  always  preceding,  and  always  remedial 
to,  the  developing  moral  needs  of  the  race. 
It  is  itself  the  efficient  and  inspiring  soul  of 
the  world's  moral  and  spiritual  progress.  The 
vital  processes  of  Christianity  do  not  need 
revision;  they  do  not  need  defense.    They  work 


244         RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

like  a  leaven  in  the  growths  of  civilization, 
constantly  securing  for  themselves  a  broaden- 
ing application  to  man's  industrial,  educational, 
social,  and  moral  life.  Man's  intelligence  needs 
to  be  continuously  quickened  and  enlarged,  that 
he  may  have  even  a  proximate  appreciation 
of  the  vitalizing  and  increasing  functions  of 
Christianity  in  human  affairs.  If  this  view — 
perhaps  he  would  not  give  it  place — were 
added  to  Eucken's  conception,  then  he  would 
stand  as  a  foremost  witness  to  the  complete 
adequacy  of  Christianity  for  meeting  the  moral 
needs  of  the  world. 

I  have  sought  in  this  discussion,  though  very 
fragmentarily,  to  secure  a  fair  and  representative 
impression  of  the  attitude  of  present-day  phil- 
osophy toward  the  main  question  of  our  pur- 
suit. The  approved  philosophy  of  the  age 
plants  itself  on  spiritual  and  not  on  materialistic 
bases.  This  philosophy  clearly  recognizes  the 
supreme  dignity,  value  and  needs  of  man's 
spiritual  nature.  It  recognizes,  as  in  the  case 
of  Eucken,  that  Christianity,  more  perfectly 
than  any  other  known  system,  furnishes  the 
environment,  the  stimuli,  the  moral  supports, 
both  for  the  deepest  needs  and  the  highest 
developments  of  the  spiritual  life.  Outside  of 
revelation  itself  we  could  hardly  ask  for  more 
satisfactory  testimony  as  to  Christian  values. 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  245 

Let  us  come  back,  then,  to  listen  finally  to 
the  voice  of  Christian  experience.  In  over- 
whelming consensus  this  voice  testifies  that 
for  the  penitent  sinner  is  divine  forgiveness; 
in  place  of  the  sense  of  guilt  there  may  be  the 
joy  of  pardon;  for  the  will  weakened  and  im- 
paired by  sinful  habit,  moral  renovation  and 
spiritual  reenforcement;  the  installment  within 
of  new  affections,  desires,  and  purposes;  a  new 
and  wondrous  consciousness  of  reconciliation 
and  fellowship  with  God;  a  newly  awakened 
love  for,  and  moral  interest  in,  the  welfare  of 
one's  fellows.  A  man  when  thus  made  a  new 
creature  in  Christ  Jesus  is  moved  by  a  Christ- 
like desire  for  a  like  experience  for  all  his 
fellows.    He  says  in  his  new-found  joy: 

"O,  that  all  the  world  might  taste  and  see 
The  riches  of  His  grace; 
The  arms  of  love  that  compass  me 
Would   all   mankind  embrace." 

We  have  seen  in  this  discussion,  and  from 
many  standpoints,  how  the  incoming  of  the 
Christian  life  inspires  in  the  human  breast 
the  spirit  of  good  will  and  of  benevolent  pur- 
pose toward  all  men.  The  evidence  is  universal 
and  overwhelming  that  the  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity, tested  by  its  own  intrinsic  quahty,  is  a 
power  which  works  always  and  only  in  the 
highest  interests  of  human  welfare.    Judged  by 


M6        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

its  fruits,  Christianity,  in  its  very  nature, 
must  be  counted  worthy  of  the  highest  prag- 
matic sanction. 

5.  As  a  final  thought,  though  one  which 
cannot  be  considered  as  merely  incidental  to 
the  subject,  Christianity  not  only  outstrips 
but  climaxes  the  profoundest  human  philos- 
ophies in  its  confident  proclamation  of  immor- 
tality. The  dream  of  immortality  has  through- 
out the  ages  haunted  the  most  luminous  minds 
of  the  race.  But  Christianity  positively  crowns 
immortality  as  a  regal  and  superlative  fact  in 
the  universe  of  moral  being.  The  fruits  of 
immortality  as  an  attained  estate  cannot,  of 
course,  be  pragmatically  tested.  But  immor- 
tality as  a  faith,  in  its  inspiring  and  regulative 
power  over  human  character  and  conduct, 
makes  legitimate  appeal  to  the  pragmatic 
judgment. 

It  must  be  sadly  admitted  that  in  many 
thoughtful  circles  the  belief  in  immortality  is 
not  as  vivid  now,  not  as  confident,  as  in  some 
previous  times.  This  situation  is  accounted 
for  largely  by  new  and  absorbing  preoccupa- 
tions which  have  taken  possession  of  modern- 
world  thought.  A  new  world  of  material 
wealth  has  been  thrust  upon  the  human  vision. 
Science  has  challenged  modern  thought  with  a 
thousand    baffling    questions,    many    of    them 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  247 

carrying  implications  of  negation  against  the 
continuous  survival  of  the  soul.  As  Professor 
Fosdick  has  said: 

Another  reason  for  the  decline  of  emphasis  upon 
the  importance  of  the  life  to  come  is  not  so  creditable. 
...  In  the  present  age  this  life  has  been  made  vivid 
and  interesting  in  an  unexampled  way.  Old  isola- 
tions have  been  overcome,  so  that  the  whole  world 
is  now  the  province  of  any  mind  that  chooses  to  be 
cosmopolitan,  and  rapidity  of  communication  has 
made  possible  world-wide  enterprises  on  such  a  scale 
as  no  previous  age  has  ever  known.  New  knowledge 
has  consumed  the  thoughts  of  men,  and  new  avenues 
of  wealth  have  engaged  their  ambitions,  until  the 
contemplation  of  eternal  destiny  has  paled  before 
the  immediate  brilliance  of  this  present  world.  For 
men  are  hke  auditoriums;  they  can  hold  so  many 
occupants  and  no  more;  and  when  the  seats  are 
filled  and  even  the  "Standing  Room  Only"  sign  has 
been  removed,  the  next  comer,  though  he  be  a 
prince,  must  cool  his  heels  upon  the  curb.  The 
minds  of  men  have  been  preempted  by  the  immediate 
and  fascinating  interests  of  this  vigorous,  exciting 
age.  The  fact  is  not  so  much  that  they  through 
reasoned  disbelief  have  discarded  faith  in  immor- 
tahty,  as  that  through  preoccupation  they  have  lost 
interest  in  anything  beyond  the  grave. 

Preoccupation  does  not  annul  facts.  A  man 
in  a  mood  of  preoccupation  may  step  off  the 
edge  of  a  precipice,  but  the  result  is  none  the 
less  fatal.  Pleasure-seekers  who  ride  on  the 
swift  river  may  be  all  unmindful  of  the  ocean. 
But  the  current  not  less  surely  bears  them  on 


248         RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

toward  the  heaving  tides  and  the  roaring 
breakers  of  the  not-distant  sea.  Immortahty 
may  remain  true  though  all  men  should  forget 
the  fact.  Grant  all  the  mysteries  that  shadow 
to  the  natural  reason  the  question  of  immor- 
tality, weigh  all  arguments  which  materialism 
can  urge  against  the  fact,  still  the  moral  reason 
forever  asserts  that  if  we  Hve  in  an  honest 
universe,  man  must  be  immortal. 

It  is  not  a  little  significant  that  many  of  the 
greatest  authorities  in  modern  science  not  only 
find  no  insuperable  obstacles  to  faith  in  im- 
mortality, but  they  marshal  the  very  facts 
of  science  itself  in  support  of  such  faith.  "The 
fact  that  men  like  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  in  natural 
science.  Professor  William  James  in  psychol- 
ogy, Dr.  William  Osier  in  medicine,  have 
thought  it  reasonable  to  cherish  hopes  of 
immortality,  suggests  at  once  that  while  im- 
mortality may  not  be  proved,  it  certainly  has 
not  been  disproved."  Professor  John  Fiske 
boldly  says,  "The  materialistic  assumption  that 
the  life  of  the  soul  ends  with  the  life  of  the 
body  is  perhaps  the  most  colossal  instance  of 
baseless  assumption  that  is  known  to  the 
history  of  philosophy."  Further,  in  giving 
attention  to  the  argument  against  immortality 
as  based  upon  the  assumption  of  the  mind's 
dependence   upon   the   body,   he   says:    "How 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  249 

much  does  this  argument  amount  to  as  against 
the  behef  that  the  soul  survives  the  body? 
The  answer  is,  Nothing!  absolutely  nothing! 
It  not  only  fails  to  disprove  the  validity  of 
the  belief,  but  it  does  not  raise  even  the  slight- 
est prima  facie  presumption  against  it." 

An  effective  answer  to  skepticism  of  immor- 
tality, be  it  scientific  or  otherwise,  would  be  to 
grant  its  premise,  and  then  to  pursue  its  logic 
to  the  end.  This  logic  would  turn  the  uni- 
verse into  a  graveyard.  It  would  veil  all  the 
skies  of  human  hope  in  darkness  and  sterility. 
If  science  teaches  anything,  it  is  that  nature 
through  incalculable  aeons,  and  at  infinite 
costs,  has  wrought  as  with  unswerving  purpose 
toward  the  great  objective  known  as  a  human 
personality.  This  is  nature's  goal,  beyond 
which  it  seems  powerless  to  advance.  What 
is  the  logic  of  the  theory  that  death  ends  all.^ 
It  means  that  Isaiah  and  Socrates,  Jesus  and 
Paul,  Dante,  Shakespeare,  and  Luther,  that  all 
the  brilliant  constellations  of  human  genius 
lifting  themselves  above  the  horizons  of  history, 
that  all  these  were  born  after  the  birth-pangs 
of  countless  ages  only,  like  fireflies,  to  shine 
for  a  brief  moment,  and  then  to  be  extinguished 
forever  in  ray  less  night.  This  logic  turns  the 
universe  into  a  moral  chaos,  and  makes  of 
human  life  itself  an  inexplicable  and  mocking 


250        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

enigma.     The  very  thought  is  intolerable  to 
all  noble  minds. 

Professor  Huxley,  when  consciously  approach- 
ing old  age,  wrote  to  John  Morley: 

The  great  thing  one  has  to  wish  for  as  time  goes 
on  is  vigor  as  long  as  one  lives,  and  death  as  soon  as 
vigor  dies.  It  is  a  curious  thing  that  I  find  my  dis- 
like to  the  thought  of  extinction  increasing  as  I  get 
older  and  nearer  to  the  goal.  It  flashes  over  me  at 
all  sorts  of  times  with  a  sort  of  horror  that  in  1900 
I  shall  probably  know  no  more  of  what  is  going  on 
than  I  did  in  1800.  I  had  sooner  be  in  hell  a  good 
deal — at  any  rate,  in  one  of  the  upper  circles,  where 
the  climate  and  the  company  are  not  too  trying.  I 
wonder  if  you  are  plagued  in  this  way. 

Nor  is  there  any  final  satisfaction  in  the 
Positivistic  teaching  that  men  live  in  the  deeds 
of  good  which  they  bequeath  to  posterity; 
that  thus  they  are  immortal  in  the  sense  that 
their  own  good  deeds  live  on  in  the  enrichment 
of  subsequent  lives.  In  the  end  it  is  all  the 
same.  We  come  finally,  at  least  so  far  as  man 
is  concerned,  to  universal  extinction,  to  a  worn- 
out  and  lifeless  universe. 

The  rational  indications  of  the  undying  life 
of  the  human  soul  are  many.  It  may  be 
soberly  and  measuredly  said  that  not  all  the 
skeptical  philosophy  of  the  ages  has  been  able 
to  neutralize  the  force  of  these  indications. 
As  against  all  arguments,  it  may  be  said  that 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  251 

the  rational  constitution  of  the  soul  carries  in 
itself  the  instinctive  and  inseparable  belief  in 
its  own  immortality.  Christianity  comes  to 
reenforce  and  to  illuminate  these  native  prompt- 
ings by  conceptions  of  infinite  value.  The 
Christian  conception  is  far  other  than  simply 
meaning  a  continued  existence.  It  calls  for  an 
infinite  program  for  the  soul's  moral  develop- 
ment, for  its  achievements  and  attainments. 
It  means  space  and  opportunity  in  which  the 
human  individuality,  that  last  consummate 
product  of  nature's  dateless  efforts,  is  to  find 
forever  ceaseless  development  of  its  godlike 
potentialities.  This  program  inspired  into  hu- 
man convictions  transforms  life  into  a  school 
of  moral  heroism.  It  evens  up  the  moral 
opportunities  of  being.  It  goes  far  with  the 
poor  and  the  unprivileged  toward  compensating 
for  what  often  seems  the  unjust,  and  even  the 
cruel,  inequalities  of  this  earthly  life. 

Many  a  man  here  does  not  seem  to  have  a 
fair  chance.  Here  is  one  in  a  factory  exhaust- 
ing his  physical  energy  for  every  working  day 
in  the  year  in  a  most  monotonous  and  un- 
developing  employment.  There  is  the  poor 
seamstress  supporting  herself,  and,  it  may  be, 
her  fatherless  children,  by  giving  herself  morn- 
ing, noon,  and  night  to  the  needle  until  the 
doleful  "Song  of  the  Shirt"  works  itself  into 


252        RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

her  very  nerve  and  fiber.  But  this  man  carries 
in  his  mental  constitution  all  undeveloped  and 
ungratified  the  faculties  of  the  philosopher. 
The  poor  seamstress  has  lying  within  her  the 
latent  faculties  of  poet  and  prophetess.  Physi- 
cal limitations  are  for  the  present  putting 
impassable  barriers  up  around  these  souls. 
Their  opportunity  is  yet  to  come.  Immor- 
tality will  furnish  the  limitless  landscape  and 
the  theater  in  which  they  shall  yet  develop 
their  powers  to  the  full. 

Immortality,  after  the  Christian  type,  alone 
furnishes  real  scope  for  the  complete  ful- 
fillment of  that  which  is  now  prophetic  in  all 
men.  The  strongest  man  at  present  is  rel- 
atively infantile.  The  man  of  largest  vision  is, 
at  best,  nearsighted.  Most  men  are  at  present 
hedged  in  by  barriers  of  inheritance,  of  narrow 
education,  of  untrained  faculties,  of  skeptical 
habit,  all  of  which  bar  them  from  widest 
outlook  upon  the  universe  of  their  real  possi- 
bilities. We  are  provincial  in  our  habits. 
Our  beliefs  are  narrow.  We  are  like  dwellers 
in  caves  by  the  seashore  rather  than  explorers 
of  the  boundless  deep.  The  wings  of  our  souls 
are  not  yet  trained  for  familiar  flights  through 
the  starry  spaces.  The  sons  of  God,  taber- 
nacling here  in  the  flesh,  have  not  yet  found 
their  spiritual  vision.     The  best  are  as  they 


THE  PRAGMATIC  TEST  253 

who  look  through  a  glass  darkly.  God's  more 
glorious  universe,  the  spiritual,  has  as  yet 
been  revealed  only  in  prophecy,  in  types,  in 
occasional  experiences  and  revelations  which 
have  come  to  elect  souls  in  mountain-top 
experiences.  It  will  not  always  be  so.  For 
those  who  toil  a  day  of  emancipation  will 
come.  The  drudgery  of  life  will  be  lifted  away, 
and  the  soul,  with  fully  awakened  powers, 
will  come  to  the  larger  universe  of  realization. 
None  can  as  yet  measure  or  describe  the 
meaning  or  the  opportunities  of  the  heritage 
of  immortality  for  the  sons  of  God.  We  are 
living  in  a  physical  universe  practically  infinite 
in  its  dimensions  and  resources.  In  the  sphere 
of  intellectual  possibilities  the  immortality  of 
the  soul  is  paralleled  only  by  the  immensity 
of  worlds — worlds  all  of  which  are  under  the 
common  sway  of  God's  scepter,  and  the  study 
of  which  it  might  require  an  eternity  to  ex- 
haust. The  great  counterpart  of  this  truth  is 
that  man  has  hardly  as  yet  begun  to  discover 
the  real  wealth  of  his  own  faculties,  of  his 
own  possibilities.  He  shall  yet  develop  the 
art  of  discovering  every  hidden  fact  of  the 
universe.  He  shall  develop  power  both  to 
capture  and  master  all  truth  which  may  min- 
ister to  his  own  enrichment.  But  lying  along- 
side these  great  truths  is  that  other  inevitable 


254         RELIGIOUS  EXPERIENCE 

fact  that  every  child  of  God  must  finally  have 
full  opportunity  for  self-development. 

But,  however  immeasurable  the  intellectual 
possibilities  of  the  immortal  life,  we  may  not 
forget  that  the  material  universe,  immense 
and  marvelous  as  it  is,  is  but  secondary  in 
its  values.  The  real  glory  of  God's  greatness 
is  moral.  The  crowning  destiny  which  he 
purposes  for  man  is  moral.  The  highest  pur- 
suits and  enjoyments  of  the  sons  of  God  will 
forever  be  in  the  realm  of  the  spiritual.  And 
if  God  has  overwhelmed  our  minds  by  the 
discoveries  he  has  made  of  himself  in  the 
physical  universe,  what  infinitely  more  glorious 
moral  and  spiritual  revelations  may  not  his 
sons  expect?  While  eternity  moves  on,  God 
will  forever  press  new  revelations  of  his  own 
exhaustless  glories  upon  the  unfolding  vision 
and  receptivity  of  his  children. 

In  the  light  of  most  saintly  and  heroic 
living,  it  has  been  abundantly  proven  that 
the  Christian  conception  of  immortality  fur- 
nishes the  loftiest  and  most  inspiring  motives 
for  the  shaping  of  character  and  the  govern- 
ment of  life. 

Death  is  the  chilliness  that  precedes  the  dawn; 
We  shudder  for  a  moment,  then  awake 
In  the  broad  sunshine  of  another  life. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  list  of  publications  herein  given  represents  books, 
all  of  which,  in  more  or  less  measure,  have  been  consulted 
in  the  preparation  of  this  volume. 

A  Working  Faith Harris  Franklin  Rail 

An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology  \       vir-ir        xt      4.       r^i     i 
The  Christian  Doctrine  of  God      }  •William  Newton  Clarke 

Book  of  Martyrs Foxe 

Essays J.  Brierley 

Browning's  Poems. 

Can  We  Still  Be  Christians.'  1 

Problem  of  Human  Life  [ Rudolf  Eucken 

Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought  J 

(Christianity  and  Labor William  Muir 

( 'hristianit\-  and  the  Social  Crisis  \        -1x71*15         u     u       1. 
^M    •  ,•      •  V       .,0     •  1  rk  J  }  ■  ..Walter  Rauschenbusch 

(  hnstianizing  the  Social  Order      j 

(^imbridge  Biblical  Essays  \  tt  t>      1       c?      4. 

Cambridge  Theological  Essays  / ^enry  Barclay  bwete 

Dictionary  of  the  Bible James  Hastings 

Emerson's  Essays. 

Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire Edward  Gibbon 

History  of  Methodism,  Vol.  I Abel  Stevens 

History  of  Christianity John  F.  Hurst 

Hymnals  (Various  Church). 

History  of  European  Morals W.  E,  H.  Lecky 

Jesus    Christ   and   the   Social  ^ 

Jes^us'chr°st  and  the   Chris-  [  •  Francis  Greenwood  Peabody 

tian  Character  J 

Mysticism  and  Modern  Life John  Wright  Buckham 

My  Belief R.  F.  Horton 

Personality  1 

The  Essence  of  Religion  I    g^^^^^  p^^j^^^  g^^^^ 

Studies  in  Christianity 
The  Immanence  of  God    J 

Religions  of  Authority Auguste  Sabatier 

Spiritual  Reformers  of  the  XVI  and  XVII  1  j^^^^^  ^   j^^^^ 

Centuries J 

The  Christian  Religion J.  Scott  Lidgett 

257 


258  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  1 

Th^'pface  of  Christ  in  Modern  [  ^°^^^^  ^^^^^^  Fairbairn 

Theology  J 

The  Rise  of  the  Mediaeval  Church .  .  Alexander  Clarence  Flick 

The  Chief  Corner  Stone W.  T.  Davison 

The  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire W.  M.  Ramsay 

The  Assurance  of  Immortality Harry  Emerson  Fosdick 

The  Working  Faith  of  a  Liberal  Theo- 
logian   T.  Rhonnda  Williams 

The  Romance  of  Preaching Charles  Silvester  Home 

The  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience William  James 

The  Psychology  of  the  Christian  Life  .  .  Horace  Emory  Warner 

Theism  and  Humanism Arthur  James  Balfour 

The  Reconstruction  of  the  Church Paul  Moore  Strayer 

The  Three  Religious  Leaders  of  Oxford .  .  .  .  S,  Parkes  Cadman 
The  Conflict  of  Religions  in  the  Early  Ro-  ] 

man  Empire  >  .  .T.  R.  Glover 

The  Christian  Tradition  and  Its  Verification  J 

The  Gospel  of  Good  Will .  .  . William  DeWitt  Hyde 

The   Immanence   of    Christ   in    Modern 

Thought Frederick  R.  Swan 

The  Quest  of  the  Infinite Benjamin  A.  Millard 

The  Spiritual  Life  \  r  \    r 

The  Religion  of  a  Mature  Mind  / ^^eorge  A.  i.oe 

The  New  World  Religion Josiah  Strong 

The  Indwelling  Spirit T.  W,  Davison 

The  Philosophy  of  Spirit John  Snaith 

The  Rise  of  Modern  Religious 

Ideas Andrew  Cushman  McGiffert 

Tennyson's  Poems. 

Pragmatism William  James 

Principles  of  Pragmatism H.  Heath  Bawden 

Psychology  of  Religious  Experience .  .  Edward  Scribner  Ames 
Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Expe- 
rience   William  Ernest  Hocking 

In  addition  to  the  foregoing  cited  works,  I  have  consulted 
several  articles  in  the  Cyclopaedia  Britannica,  as  also  in  the 
Cyclopaedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics,  edited  by  James  Hastings. 
I  may  volunteer  the  conviction  that  the  latter  work  is  in- 
dispensable to  any  well-furnished  ministerial  library. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Agnosticism,  large  contin- 
gency of  mind  character- 
ized by,  11 

Ames,  Edward  P.,  cited,  46 

Anaesthesia,  state  of,  44 

Animosities,  tribal,  long 
survival  of,  76 

Arnold,  Matthew,  a  be- 
liever in  moral  law,  32 

Art,  service  of,  to  world-de- 
mocracy of  intelligence, 
236 

Augustine,  referred  to,  61; 
character  and  conver- 
sion of,  94-96;  life  lived 
by,  97 

Aurelius,  Marcus,  quoted, 
150;  classed  with  Moses, 
151;  quoted,  152 


Ballard,  Dr.  Frank,  state- 
ments from  pen  of,  16 

Balling,  Peter,  quoted,  42 

Bashford,  Bishop  James 
W.,  cited,  151;  referred 
to,  181 

Begbie,  Harold,  referred  to, 
128 

Believer,  the  graces  in  life 
of,  148 

Bible,  the    supreme   utter- 


ance  of  the  highest   re- 
ligion,  38;    criticism   of, 

73 
"Birth-song  of  Evangelical 

Revival,"      by      Charles 

Wesley,  159 
Bisseker,      Professor      H., 

quoted,   99 
Bowne,    Borden    P.,    cited, 

46;   quoted,  91;   referred 

to,   197;    pragmatism  of, 

198;  quoted,  214,  232 
Boxer  Rebellion,  fortitude 

of  Chinese  Christians  in, 

155 
Brainerd,  David,  work  of, 

181 
Brierley,  J.,  quoted,  42,  64, 

74,  106 
Browning,  Robert,  quoted, 

58,  59,  60;  cited,  128 
Bunyan,  John,  voice  of  in- 

suppressible,  156 
Business,  the  inner  motive 

of,  78 
Butler,    William,    referred 

to,  181 

Cadman,    Dr.     S.     Parkes, 

quoted,  205,  207 
Calvin,  John,   referred   to, 

130 


261 


26^ 


INDEX 


Cartwright,  Peter,  referred 
to,  35,  36 

Gary,  William,  work  of, 
180 

Celsus,  complaint  of, 
against  Christians,  122; 
view  of,  concerning 
Christian  converts,  123; 
his  explanation  of  firm- 
ness of  early  martyrs, 
162 

Chalmers,  of  New  Guinea, 
referred  to,  181 

Character,  Christian,  107; 
study  of  claims  for,  110; 
New  Testament  stand- 
ards of,  115;  testimony 
of,  141 

Character,  factors  entering 
into,  108;  the  outcome 
of  cumulative  forces, 
109;  biblical  ideals  of 
godly,  112 

Children,  valuable  recruits 
of  the  Church,  136 

Christ,  pragmatic  rule  of, 
13;  mission  of,  61;  great- 
ness of,  62;  a  great  dis- 
turber of  the  traditions 
of  his  times,  72;  growth 
of  followers  of,  120; 
teaching  of,  165;  King- 
dom of,  seemingly  of 
slow  development, 
169;  the  incomprehen- 
sible and  immeasurable 
character  of  history, 
172;     activity     of,     174; 


scope  of  mission  of,  183; 
quoted,  233;  a  Character 
who  has  changed  the 
face  of  the  world,  242 

Christian,  the,  Christ's 
disciple,  65;  duties  of, 
223 

Christians,  austere  purity 
of  morals  of,  121;  early 
history  of  marvelous, 
122;  Chinese  in  Boxer 
Rebellion,  155 

Christian  Church,  situa- 
tion within,  25 

Christian  experience,  ideal, 
how  regarded,  23;  prim- 
itive, nature  of,  30;  evi- 
dential values  of,  103; 
assessing  the  values  of, 
138;  phenomena  of,  142; 
Cause  and  Source  of 
considered,  143;  charac- 
terized by  fortitude, 
154;  voice  of,  245;  Chris- 
tian ideal  for  individual 
welfare,  inquiry  con- 
cerning, 215;  Christian 
standard,  ideal,  dis- 
cussed, 78,  79 

Christian  service,  167 

Christian  truth,  sum  of, 
24;  narrow  horizon  as- 
signed to,  28 

Christianity,  how  rated  by 
Nietzsche,  10;  hate  tow- 
ard, 11 ;  systematic  oppo- 
sition to,  12, 13;  not  fear- 
ful  of   comparison   with 


INDEX 


263 


other  forces,  13;  opposi- 
tion   to    encountered   by 
Saint  Paul,   15;    charac- 
terized   by    both    faults 
and  failures,  15;  without 
a   rival   in   good   accom- 
plished, 15;   ready  to  be 
judged  by  its  fruits,  16; 
diverse  views  in,  25;  re- 
ligious    expression    out- 
side of,  27;  a  religion  of 
the   spirit,    65;    its   mis- 
sion   to    save    the    indi- 
vidual    soul,     67;      the 
Church's    conception    of 
function  of  on  earth  en- 
larged, 75;   vision  of  to- 
day,   76;    spirit    of    too 
narrowly  measured,   80; 
spread    of    over    Roman 
empire,   98;    reforms   of, 
116;      cherished      tradi- 
tions   rebuked    by,    118; 
Jewish      opposition      to, 
119;  early  life  of  tested 
by     official     fury,     120; 
power   of   to   transform, 
123;     state     of     Roman 
world  at  time  of  advent 
of,  200 ;  though  outlawed, 
morally  invincible,   201; 
wickedness       denounced 
by,  202;  divine  life  of  re- 
asserted,     204;      divine 
character    of    power    by 
pragmatic       philosophy, 
212;     great    revivals    of 
responded     to     by     the 


poor,  228;  moral  needs 
of  all  individuals  met 
by,  230;  sufficiency  of  to 
meet  needs  of  man's 
spiritual  nature,  233; 
not  antagonistic  to  moral 
sense  of  race,  234;  spirit 
of,  243;  a  power  which 
works  always  in  the 
highest  interests  of  hu- 
man welfare,  245;  a 
final  thought  concerning, 
246 

Christianity  and  the  New 
Age,  quotation  from,  183 

Church,      the,      organized 
labor  living  in  practical 
divorce     from,     11,     12; 
general  trend  of  thought 
in,  12;  treated  with  neg- 
lect,   13;    importance    of 
membership    in,    34;    in 
possession   of  revelation 
of  Christ's  character,  39 ; 
human      leadership      re- 
quired   by,    40;     things 
emphasized      by,       129; 
great     scandal     suffered 
by,    170;    adverse    criti- 
cism of  noted,  173;  char- 
acterized by  a  spirit  of 
charity,   175;    the   great- 
est human  organism  cre- 
ated     by      Christianity, 
203;  not  a  synonym  for 
Christianity,  204 
Church   of   England,   spir- 


264 


INDEX 


I 


itual  life  in,  at  time  of 
Wesleyan  Revival,  205 

Church  of  Rome,  arrogant 
claims  of,  216 

Civilization,  fruits  yielded 
to,  15;  God's  larger  dia- 
gram of,  221 

Clarke,  Dr.  William  New- 
ton, mental  law  stated 
by,  9;  quoted,  42,  86 

Corporations,  object  of  or- 
ganization, 219 

Coe,  George  A.,  cited,  46 

Cook,  Joseph,  quoted,  84 

"Conversion,"  the  term  dis- 
cussed, 85,  86;  narra- 
tives of  Old  Testament 
relating  to,  87;  New  Tes- 
tament treatment  of,  87; 
processes  of,  88;  reality 
of  attested  by  millions 
of  witnesses,  90;  a  moral 
miracle  in  history,  98; 
evidential  values  of,  99; 
remarkable  instance  of, 
126 

Creed,  formulated,  not  dis- 
paraged, 29 ;  exalted 
above  character,  31 

Creeds,  many  men  ex- 
cluded by,  28;  worthy  of 
historic  honor,  80;  neces- 
sities of  ages  which  gave 
them  birth,  30;  not 
necessarily  immortal,  31 

Criticism,  true  function  of, 
71;  acceptance  of  new 
views  demanded  by,  72 


Cross,    preaching    of    con- 
sidered foolishness,  118 
Culture,  widespread,  237 

Dante,  cited,  249 
Davison,  Dr.  W.  T.,  quoted, 

64;  cited,  100 

Denominations,  Protestant, 
dogmatic  and  narrow 
qualities  of,  77;  divisive 
sectarianism  in,  becom- 
ing a  thing  of  increasing 
abhorrence,  77 

Denominationalism,  one 
weakness  of,  31 

Despotism,  motive  of,  217 

Doddridge,  Philip,  conver- 
sion hymn  by,  161 

Duke  of  Bavaria,  exhorta- 
tion to  John  Huss,  154 

Ehrhardt,  Professor  Chris- 
tian Eugene,  quoted,  214 

Elijah,  cited,  55 

Emerson,  quoted,  32,  137 

Epictetus,  referre'  to,  150; 
classed  with  Moses,  151 

Era,  present,  one  of  uni- 
versal knowledge,  236 

Erasmus,  quoted,   74 

"Eternal  life,"  emphasized 
as  a  thing  of  quality, 
163 

Evangelical  thought,  duty 
of,  38 

Evolution,  perfected  the- 
ory of,   57 

Eucken,  Rudolf,  on  reason, 


INDEX 


^65 


48;  indebtedness  of  age 
to,  79;  referred  to,  80; 
cited,  96;  position  of  rel- 
ative to  pragmatism, 
196;  quoted,  197,  200; 
moral  failure  portrayed 
by,  241;  quoted,  242; 
philosophy  of,  243;  re- 
ferred to,  244 

Europe,  present  state  of, 
14 

Eusebius,  quoted,  146 

Fairbairn,  Andrew  Martin, 
quoted,  22;   quoted,  108 

Faith,  nonevangelical,  28; 
indispensable  handmaids 
of,  30 

Findlay,  Dr.  G.  G.,  quoted, 
146 

Fiske,  Professor  John 
quoted,  168,  248 

Fortitude,  Christian,  158 

Fosdick,  Professor,  quoted, 
247 

Fox,  George,  quoted,  51 

Francis  of  Assisi,  trans- 
formation of,  180 

Garvie,  Principal  Alfred 
Ernest,  quoted,  232 

Gibbon,  not  favorable  to 
Christianity,   124 

Glover,  Dr.  T.  R.,  quoted, 
125 

God,  relations  of,  with  the 
human  soul,  9;  revealed 
to   men   to-day,   39;    the 


only  answer  to  the  in- 
finite in  man,  49;  has 
furnished  object  lessons 
of  himself,  50;  deals 
spiritually  with  all  men, 
51;  dealings  of,  in  his- 
tory, 52;  perfected  world 
of,  how  characterized, 
53;  redemptive  purpose 
of,  56;  not  balked  in  his 
purpose,  56;  exaltation 
of  man  central  to  his 
purpose,  62;  the  great 
Thinker,  68 ;  voice  of,  de- 
mands ethical  living,  78 

Gospel,  the,  announced  by 
the  angels,  147 

Government,  benefits  of, 
218 ;  ultimate  function 
of,  219 

Hadley,  S.  H.,  conversion 
of,  described,  126-128 

Hall,  Professor  Thomas  C, 
quoted,  11 

Harnack,  quoted,  96 

Hebrews,  the  ancient,  spir- 
itual genius  of,  52;  com- 
pared with  Grecian  con- 
temporaries, 53;  states- 
manship of,  a  negligible 
quantity,  54;  place  in 
civilization  must  not  be 
minified,  54;  stands  in 
moral  center  of  drama 
of  the  world,  55 

"Historical  orthodoxy,"  es- 
sentially Christian,  24 


266 


INDEX 


Holy  Scriptures,  the,  con- 
tents of,  38 

Holy  Spirit,  the,  63;  ac- 
cepted as  God  working  in 
his  world,  65;  his  mis- 
sion the  same  as  that  of 
Jesus  Christ,  66;  offices 
of,  66;  vital  relation  to 
man's  being,  67;  mental 
insight  quickened  by, 
74;  deals  with  interests 
of  human  life  on  un- 
limited scale,  81;  com- 
panionship of,  111;  trans- 
forming and  character- 
forming  mission  of  con- 
sidered, 134-143;  distinc- 
tive fruits  of,  149,  162 

Hocking,  William  E.,  cited, 
46 

Home,  Charles  Silvester, 
quoted,  186 

Hugo,  Victor,  quoted,  232 

Human  body,  designated 
as  "temple  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  71 

Human  soul,  relations  of, 
with  God,  9 

Humanity  a  solidarity,  77 

Huss,  John,  referred  to, 
130;  fortitude  of,  154; 
quoted,  155 

Huxley,  Professor,  quoted, 
250 

Hyde,  Dr.  William  De 
Witt,  reference  to  book 
by,  184 


Immortality,  252 

Individualism,  the  oppo- 
site of  organization,  217 

Intellect,  vital  questions 
decided  in  court  of,  68; 
does  not  yield  all  the 
criteria  of  truth,  69 

Intellectual  culture, 
wrongly  suspected  of  be- 
ing a  foe  to  spirituality, 
73 

Isaiah,  cited,  55,  151,  249 

James,  William,  indebted- 
ness to,  acknowledged, 
17;  quoted,  44;  cited,  46; 
quoted,  84,  89;  cited, 
125;  quoted,  137,  152; 
referred  to,  193;  cited, 
248 

Jeremiah,  referred  to,  151 

Jesus  Christ,  the  supreme 
fact  of,  51;  quoted,  90; 
his  conception  of  the 
godly  character,  113; 
quoted,  192 

John,  Griffith,  referred  to, 
181 

John  the  Baptist,  cited,  55 

Jones,  Professor  Maurice, 
quoted,   106 

Joy,  a  fruit  of  the  Spirit, 
147;  spoken  of  by  Christ, 
159 


Kant,  referred  to,  49,  107; 
influenced      by      Stoical 


INDEX 


267 


ideals,  109;  influence  of, 

on  modern  thought,  217 
Kingdom,   Christ's,  nature 

of,  37 
Kingsley,   Charles,  cited,  44 
Knowledge,  slow  march  of, 

57 
Knox,    John,    referred    to, 

130 

Labor,  organized,  practi- 
cally divorced  from  the 
Church,  10,  11;  accep- 
tance of  materialistic 
guidance  by,  discussed, 
14 

Latimer,  Hugh,  quoted, 
155 

Laws,  spiritual,  ignorance 
of,  140 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  quoted, 
124,  176,  192,  212 

Lewis,  Wilson  S.,  referred 
to,  181 

Life,  Christian,  ethical 
quality  of,  140 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  charac- 
ter of,  33;  intellectual 
difficulties  encountered 
by,  34 

Livingstone,  David,  re- 
ferred to,  181 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  cited, 
43,  248 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  quoted,  42; 
cited,  43 

Loyola,  Ignatius,  conver- 
sion of,  180 


Lucian,  attitude  of,  toward 
Christians,  123 

Luther,  Martin,  doctrine 
taught  by,  61;  referred 
to,  94;  lifted  to  a  new 
level  by  a  spiritual  reve- 
lation, 131;  cited,  249 

Mammon-god,  widely  wor- 
shiped in  the  age,  12 

Man,  God's  supreme  coun- 
terpart in  universe,  26; 
religious  nature  of,  27; 
faculties  exercised  by, 
47;  moral  constitution 
of,  not  a  lie,  49;  made  for 
two  relationships,  67; 
relations  both  individual 
and  social,  67;  endow- 
ment of  intellectual  fac- 
ulty of,  68;  pre-emi- 
nently a  social  being,  75; 
to  be  a  Christian  the 
loftiest  realization  pos- 
sible to,  79;  Christ's 
program  for,  222;  ma- 
terial life  of,  never  so 
immense,  239 

Mankind,  poor  response  of, 
to  God's  higher  thought 
and  purpose,  56 

Martyn,  Henry,  labors  of, 
181 

Martyr,  Justin,  quoted,  122 

Martyrs,  Christian,  cour- 
age of,  164 

Material  satisfaction,  le- 
gitimacy of,  235 


268 


INDEX 


Materialism,  harangues 
on,  11;  present  place  of, 
scientific,  12;  rests  on 
the  life  of  the  age,  12; 
lure  of,  upon  the  age, 
237;  effects  of,  in  its  re- 
lation to  life  and  char- 
acter, 240 

Mathews,  Shailer,  quoted, 
186 

McArthur,  Sir  Alexander, 
quoted,   182 

McConnell,  Bishop  Francis 
J.,  quoted,  84 

Messengers,  unsalaried, 
nescience  and  godless- 
ness  taught  by,  11 

Methodism,  world-wide  to- 
day, 211 

Militarism,  Prussian,  re- 
ferred to,  14 

Miner,  Miss  Luella,  quoted, 
155 

Millard,  Benjamin  A., 
quoted,  22 

Mind,  the,  made  for  criti- 
cal investigation,  69; 
the  Christian,  a  path- 
finder, 74 

Missions,  Christian,  motor- 
nerve  of,  179 

Moral  law,  not  a  cheat,  49 

Moral  wholeness,  dis- 
cussed, 32 

Morbidity,  mental,  cause 
of,  72 

Morrison,  Robert,  work 
and  patience  of,  181 


Moses,  cited,  55 

Motive,  the  real  Christian, 

178 

Nature,  laws  of,  absolutely 
reliable,  48 

Nature,  treasures  yielded 
by,  236 

Nelson,  John,  quoted,  156 

Nietzsche,  philosophy  of, 
10;  death  of  in  a  mad- 
house, 14 

Non-Christian  world,  the, 
citizenship  of  divided 
into  two  general  classes, 
13 

Oldham,  Bishop  W.  F., 
quoted,  182 

Onesimus,  plea  of  Paul  in 
behalf  of,  226 

Origen,  referred  to,  61;  tes- 
timony of,  123;  declara- 
tion by,  134 

Orthodoxy,  intellectual,  ar- 
raignment of,  31 

Osier,  Dr.  William,  cited, 
248 

Pagan  nations,  general  ref- 
erence to,  171 

Palmer,  Ray,  experience  of 
in  death,  162 

Parker,  Edwin  Wallace, 
referred  to,  181 

Paton,  in  the  South  Sea 
Islands,  referred  to,  181 

Paul,     Saint,     cited,     55; 


INDEX 


quoted,  62;  referred  to, 
97;  declaration  of,  111; 
discrimination  made  by, 
114;  a  man  of  fortitude, 
147;  persecuted,  148; 
courage  of  under  priva- 
tion and  suffering,  164; 
the  first  Christian  mis- 
sionary to  the  Gentile 
world,  180;   cited,  249 

Peirce,  Charles,  referred 
to,  193 

Pentecostal  revival,  the, 
148 

Pessimism,  a  corrective  of, 
171 

Phenomena,  religious, 
frankest  exploration  in 
realms  of,  24;  recogni- 
tion of,  46 

Philosophy,  Nietzsche's, 
defined,  10;  materialis- 
tic, relegated  to  the 
past,  12;  Nietzschean, 
genius  of,  13;  discussed, 
88;  compelled  to  take 
note  of  religious  history, 
97;  socialistic  philoso- 
phy, 224;  present-day, 
244 

Positivistic   teaching,    250 

Pragmatic  test,  the,  191; 
discussion  of  continued, 
215;  discussion  of  con- 
tinued,  12,   33 

Pragmatism,  as  a  distinct 
system,  193 ;  discussed, 
194-198 


Press,  alien,  work  of,  11; 
omnipresent,  world-de- 
mocracy of  intelligence 
advanced  by,  236 

Processes,  divine,  erro- 
neous conclusions  con- 
cerning, 29 

"Psychic  sense,"  consid- 
ered, 43;  not  identified 
with  "spiritual  sense," 
45 

Psychologists,  protests  en- 
tered by,  46 

Psychology,  only  one  de- 
partment of  philosophy, 
88;  knowledge  of  needed 
by  teachers  and  preach- 
ers, 89 


Race,  the,  constitution  of 
as  a  whole,  52;  infantile 
moral  helplessness  of, 
56;  evolutionary  pro- 
cesses of,  57;  discussed, 
58 

Rankin,  Henry  B.,  quoted, 
34 

Rationalism,   193 

Rauschenbusch,  Professor 
Walter,  quoted,  168 

Reformation,  period  of, 
considered,  130 

Reformation,  the,  handi- 
capped by  dogmas,  131; 
only  partial  release  from 
abuses  of  Rome  effected 
by,  217 


270 


INDEX 


Relations  of  God  with  the 
human   soul,   9 

Religion,  an  inseparable 
feature  of,  24. 

Religion,  Christian,  dis- 
cussed, 110,  111 

Religion,  Hebrew,  dis- 
cussed, 112,  113 

"Religious  Experience,"  a 
subject  of  ages-long  dis- 
cussion, 9,  10;  the  term, 
why  chosen,  23. 

Religious  faiths,  hetero- 
geneous, attitude  of,  25 

Religious  life,  psychic  phe- 
nomena of,  87 

Religious  question,  the, 
vastness  of,  23 

Religious  views  destined  to 
fail,  24 

Revelation,  final  ideal  of, 
189 

Rich,  the  exceptional  temp- 
tations of,  237 

Richard,  Timothy,  referred 
to,  181 

Ridley,  Nicholas,  martyr- 
dom of,  155 

Roman  age,  at  time  of  in- 
troduction of  Christian- 
ity, 199 

Rome,  cosmopolitan  in  its 
philosophy  and  religion, 
117;  former  power  of, 
200 

Saul  of  Tarsus,  conversion 
of,   91;    courage   of,    93; 


death  of,  93;  first  im- 
pulse of  after  conver- 
sion, 175 

Science,  position  of,  rela- 
tive to  laws  of  nature, 
48;  what  it  can  and 
cannot  do,  88;  contribu- 
tive  to  a  world-demo- 
cracy of  intelligence,  236 

Schaff,  Philip,  quoted,  192 

Scriptures,  critical  study 
of,  considered  a  sin  by 
some,  70 

Seneca,  referred  to,  150; 
suicide  of,  151 

Service,  the  law  of  Chris- 
tian life,  78;  the  modern 
Christian  demand  for, 
186 

Shakespeare,  cited,  249 

Silas,  spirit  of,  under  per- 
secution, 148 

Skepticism  propagated  in 
present-day  thought,  10 

Slave,  the,  Christianity's 
service  to,  225 

Smith,  Robert  Elmer,  re- 
ferred to,  156 

Snaith,  John,  quoted,  132 

Society,  a  school  for  train- 
ing for  service,  75; 
Christ's  idea  of  the 
moral  renewal  and  re- 
construction of,  76 

Socrates,  cited,  249 

"Song  of  the  Shirt,"  re- 
ferred to,  251 

Spiritual  fruits,  145 


INDEX 


£71 


Spiritual  opportunities, 
deadly  indifference  to- 
ward, 12 

Spiritual  sense,  the,  43; 
a  racial  posession,  45; 
potential  in  universal 
human  nature,  47;  to  be 
philosophically  reckoned 
with,  48;  the  organ 
through  which  God  finds 
entrance  into  the  soul, 
50;  God's  approach  to 
the  universal  heart,  51; 
common  to  the  race,  56; 

Soldier,  the,  fortitude  of, 
157 

Spiritual  things,  worldly 
indifference  toward,  11 

Starbuck,  Edwin  D.,  cited, 
46 

Stead,  William,  cited,  43 

Stoic,  the,  referred  to,  152 

Stoicism,  ancient,  disci- 
plined character  de- 
veloped in,  109;  school 
of,  149;  illustrious  repre- 
sentatives of,  150;  pro- 
vision of  for  suicide, 
151;  insufficiency  of  the 
most  perfect  fortitude  of, 
152 

Strong.  Dr.  Josiah,  quoted, 
168 

"Superman,"  mission  of, 
10 

Symonds,  J.  A.,  cited,  44 

Taylor,  Father,  quoted,  33 


Tennyson,     Alfred,     cited, 

44;  quoted,  169 
Tertullian,     quoted,     120; 

scenes  witnessed  by,  157 
Thoburn,  Bishop  James  M., 

referred  to,  181 
Trance,         defined,         43 ; 

vision  of  Saint  Peter  in, 

44 


Universe,  moral,  forces  of, 

26 


War,  a  destroyer  of  indi- 
vidual rights,  219 

Wealth,  as  such  not  de- 
nounced by  Christ,  227 

Webster,  Noah,  "charac- 
ter" defined  by,  107 

Wesley,  Charles,  hymn  of 
on  conversion,  159; 
hymn  written  by,  160; 
quoted,  232 

Wesley,  John,  qualities  of, 
132 ;  evangelical  career 
and  death  of,  133;  ex- 
perience of,  159;  quoted, 
206 

Wesleyan  Revival  in  Eng- 
land, 205;  period  of,  206; 
fruits  of,  209 

Whitefield,  George,  re- 
ferred to,  208 

Whittier,  John  G.,  quoted, 
106 

Wilson,  Canon  James  Mau- 
rice, quoted,  61 


£7£ 


INDEX 


Woolman,  John,  experience 

of,  156 
Wordsworth,     William, 

quoted,  146 
World,  the,  scientific  unity 

of,  51 
Wycliffe,  referred  to,  130 


Xavier,  Francisco,  referred 
to,  180 

Zeno,  founder  of  school  of 

Stoicism,  149 
Zeus,  referred  to,  151 
Zwingli,  referred  to,  130 


Princeton   Theoloqn 


1012  01004  6276 


